A New Day For America

Martes, 20 de Enero, 2009
Tuesday morning I woke up at 8:00 to meet Kai downstairs for breakfast, and was surprised to see that it was still completely dark out at this time. I left the room quietly, as to not wake my end-of-the-alphabet roommate, and I realized that I had a terrible sore throat. I had been changing air pressure zones, coming into contact with many people, walking through cold Dublin, and not sleeping much for four days, so it was not a huge surprise. I felt comfort that I have my letter from my health insurance offering me coverage overseas in case I needed a strep test, which was the worst case scenario, and I was glad to have lots of moms around. I went straight for the orange juice when I got downstairs. Groups one through five were due to have our first orientation meetings together. The group of two-hundred Americans is split into fifteen groups alphabetically. For the first time in our friendship, Crafts and [Kai] Doo straddled the line, so luckily our groups (three and four) have done a lot together. We walked, in the beautiful post-rain morning, to the Tobacco Factory of “Carmen” fame, which is now part of the University of Seville. The old, stone, open building is quite the contrast to the academic buildings I’m used to. We sat in a classroom all morning as different CIEE staff members came into to tell us about academics, the writing center, information about homestays, etc. At this time we finally got our assignments. I would be living with a woman named Maria Jose Montes Naranjo. The paper said that she had a “pareja” (partner), but nothing more. I didn’t know how old she was or anything. Her house (La Calle Lopez de Gomara) is right in the middle of the neighborhoods La Triana and Los Remedios, on the other side of the river from the school and the hotel. Most people are living in this area, which is nice. I was disappointed that I would not have kids in the house, but I played with different situations in my head. She could be a young woman with a young boyfriend, which would increase my chances of having internet; she could be an old woman with and old boyfriend, which would be cute and would probably yield better food. I nursed my disappointment that “pareja” does not mean “parrot,” which the girl next to me told me it did.
During these sessions, I learned some bad news: cursos para extranjeros are only for Americans. I had been under the impression for the past six months that the cursos para extranjeros (classes for foreigners) would include students from all over the world. The CIEE website implied this, the Clark Study Abroad office implied this (I think explicitly said it), and the reason I signed up for one was to find an Irish or Greek boyfriend, pretty much. We were advised not to take these classes just because they will be a much easier language level, which can get frustrating and boring. My first thought was to drop the class, but after much deliberation I decided to stay in the class anyway. I figured it will be a good way to get involved with the university, as I will receive a student ID card, and I can use their cafeteria. My friend Marcus and I agreed to be brave and go up to random Spaniards in the cafeteria and say hi and try to make friends.
After these sessions, we returned to the hotel. We had a couple hours before lunch, and it was so nice out. I decided to grab my kiwi and camera and sit out on the ledge outside my window (don’t worry, it’s safe, like a window seat sticking out). I realized that I had no kiwi-preparing/eating equipment, so I added my nail clippers to my bundle (closest thing I could find) and made myself comfortable. It was very relaxing out there, with a nice view of the rooftops. Soon after, Kai and I walked to the Corte Ingles, Spain’s one department store, to buy cough drops and forgotten toiletries. After finishing half the bag of cough drops I didn’t have much appetite, but Kai and I returned to the hotel for lunch. Grupo Tres had decided to sit together, but Kai and I got back a little late. It didn’t appear that there was any more room at my group’s table, so we sat together with other late-comers. This was all for the better, since I was so tired, and I wanted to make a good impression with my group, which would not happen if I fell asleep with my head in my huevos hervidos. The long lunch left us with a mere forty-five minutes until the next event. My roommate and I reconvened at our room and both slept. The next activity was called “conocer Sevilla en pie” (get to know Seville on foot). It was pretty much a big scavenger hunt. There were several places--the study center, the post office, the town hall, etc.--that they thought we should know. Our group was split further, and five of us headed to the town hall (el ayuntamiento). There was supposed to be a guide there to tell us where to go next, but no one was there. There were many frustrated groups, and we all searched the entire area inside and out, to no avail. We finally gave up and just walked around. This area (La Plaza de Encarnación) was full of shoes, both Flamenco and not, and everything is on sale for the month of January. The one guy in our group (Nolan) lamented as we stopped in every shoe store. Nolan and I were shopped out after about five minutes, so we waited outside for the rest of our group. At this point, we saw two homeless guys sitting on the street in front of four signs, all of which had some coins sprinkled below them. They read “Para Cerveza,” “Para Vino,” “Para Whisky,” y “Para Resaca,” seeking money for beer, wine, whiskey, and a hangover, respectively. One of the men read my mind and held up an additional sign, which said “Fotos €287.” I gave them a few cents each for Vino y Resaca, and they let me take a picture. My friend offered to take one of me with them, and they gave me the sign that said “Y Otros Vicios” (“And other vices”) to hold. They told me to sit on the side. My friend asked why I couldn’t sit where their cardboard box was in the middle. They beckoned for us to look closely, pulled back the blanket inside their cardboard box, and revealed three or four sleeping puppies. One of the men lifted a blanket next to him and said “here are the parents” where two dogs slept. As we were leaving, they gave us a little paper with their website, www.lazybeggers.com, and asked us to post the photos there. This was quite the experience.

The girls emerged, and our group decided to go get coffee. I was tired and my throat hurt, so I wanted only one thing: a cup of tea. I have been drinking it, but the mugs (for coffee) are so small that I can never get the desired effect. That said, I did a horrible thing and went to Starbucks to get a BIG cup of tea. To make up for it, the guy in our group, Nolan, and I decided to get our first churros con chocolate. The other girls in our group wanted to go to El Corte Ingles to buy hair straighteners or whatever it is girls buy, so Nolan and I continued onward. We found a nice looking café that advertised their churros on the awning, and soon we had a steaming pile in front of us, and big mugs of rich chocolate (I think next time I’m going to ask for tea in a churro chocolate cup). Background story: I first heard of churros in my Spanish textbook in seventh grade. The illustration in the textbook looked exactly like bacon. You can imagine my surprise when I saw my first sign for “churros con chocolate” when I went to Spain in high school, after six years of thinking churros were bacon. It was nice being out with Nolan, because we both wanted to speak Spanish. With the bigger group, that doesn’t happen, so once we were on our own we could chat in Spanish over churros like any ol’ Sevillians (Sevillians that eat churros in the afternoon and invent their own verb tenses, that is).

We walked back to the hotel to change for evening activities. Groups 1-5 merged again to go to a nearby hotel that has a little Flamenco theater. There were chairs set up on three sides of a big stone tablet, and balconies above us where hotel guests could watch from their rooms. It was interesting to see Flamenco for the second time, because I could draw some conclusions. For exmple, both shows started with just the singer(s) and guitarist(s), before the dancers came out. Also, halfway through both shows the female dancer went backstage and changed into a different outfit and different shoes, all in black. This was a fabulous event.

After that, just Grupo Tres went to a favorite restaurant of our leader, Alfonso, for Tapas. Even though Nolan and I were full of churros, we relished yet another Spanish must-do of the day.
This dinner was nice because Alfonso sat at my table, so I got to know him a bit. At this point I also felt like I was really making friends with more members of my group. Once we had drinks, I proposed a toast to President Obama, which got a half-baked response which I attribute to my lack of voice at this point, since we had missed all inauguration coverage that afternoon. We ate tapas (I had a tortilla espanola y some calamari thing), then we proceeded to a bar. It was a bit small, loud, and smoky for my taste (I suppose I’ll have to get used to this), but it was luckily right across the street from an “old man bar” (as Kai has dubbed them) which was bigger, cleaner, and quieter. I went back and forth between the two to socialize with Grupo Tres at one, and my Clark friends and their new group friends at the other. We went back to the hotel and went to bed after a long day.

First day in Seville!

Lunes, 19 de Enero, 2009
In the morning it was raining. We knew because we opened our window, which looks out onto the terrace. We lugged our stuff down three flights of stairs to check out. The guidebooks had promised us turtles if we stayed in this hostel, so Ally and I asked the man where they were. He said that they sleep during the winter, but he brought us into the next room to see them anyway. They were two big turtles, with shells about nine inches long, in a fountain. They looked kind of bored (a common side effect of sleeping) and I was tempted to put the rock and flowers nearby in the fountain for them to play with, but I resisted. Ally and I then carried our stuff over to the Hotel Fernando III, which was just down the road. The hotel was bustling with jet-lagged peers and full of luggage. We checked in, then went across the street to a café for breakfast. I have confused many café workers by asking for hot water with milk, or tea without the tea because I have been bringing my own tea bags places until I boost my caffeine tolerance and do the coffee thing. Ally and I returned to the hotel where we spotted Kai (Kai is a very good friend from school who was in Madrid last semester). It was a marvelous reunion, after eight months. At that point, it was time for lunch in the hotel dining room. Ally and I weren’t very hungry, but we went along. The three of us sat with two group leaders and two scared Wisconsin-ites, and of course we spoke only Spanish. After a siesta, Kai, Ally and I headed out to buy cell phones. However, as we were leaving the hotel, we spotted Sasha (another good friend from school). We had been asking the check-in people all day if she had arrived yet, so they warned her of her fan club when she finally checked in. She wanted to shower and sleep, so the three of us proceeded on without her. We found the adorable Plaza Alfalfa, and first went to a café complete with pastries, ice cream, and chocolate. It was kinda drizzly, so it was nice to be inside a bright, busy place. We got our coffees and some empanadillas to hold us over until dinner.
We proceeded to the cell phone store across the street. It was surprisingly easy to buy a phone, especially because Kai is an expert at both prepaid phones and Spanish. He answered questions for us, and helped us talk to the lady. I am glad we went on Monday, because the massive swarms of Americans all went later in the week when the clerks were frazzled. Ally and I got identical cute white and red phones with numbers identical except for one number. We walked back to the hotel, protecting our new babies from the rain, and we spotted a tiny fruit store. We got in trouble for touching the oranges, but we left with six mandarins and a kiwi apiece. Next door was a pet store, so we stopped to observe the iguanas, neon birds, guppies, turtles, and an out-of-place rabbit. We made a couple more stops on the way back: “El Palacio” and the hotel Amadeus. El Palacio is the CIEE headquartes on calle Munoz y Pabon, where our CIEE classes will be. It’s a great building, very Moorish, with a fountain and lots of colors. All the rooms are named after cities in Andalusia. We went up to the roof, and saw that there was a little staircase to an additional terrace. We climbed up, and this gave us an amazing view of the city.

We recognized the terrace and the patio furniture from the video in our online placement exam. It was good that we chose to explore the building that day, because the terrace has since been roped off. The Hotel Amadeus was just as it looked like on the website, which plays Mozart in the background. It was pretty fancy, and filled with musical instruments--on the wall, in the living room, in rooms to play them, etc. The lady saw us looking in from inside, and invited us in to look around. We made our way up to the two levels of rooftop terrace, where we had an even better view.



We got back to the hotel just in time for the introduction meeting. All two-hundred students crowded into the sala of the hotel to meet the staff and go over the schedule for the week. Then it was time for dinner. Ally and Sasha were sitting together, and Kai and I together. We chatted with the people at our table, and afterwards proposed going for ice cream. Six of us from our dinner table headed out, got ice cream, and just walked around. It was nice to make my first batch of friends, especially because they wanted to speak Spanish. We went back to the hotel, and I talked to my roommate a bit before bed. We were assigned random roommates for these two nights. Mine is named Stephanie, and she goes to Penn State. I attempted to sleep despite drunken Americans yelling in the hall. More about that later.

Day Two

Domingo, 18 de Enero, 2009
On Sunday morning we slept right through our alarms, and luckily Ally woke up at 11:00. Checkout was at noon, so we packed up our stuff and went on our way. The hostel people let us leave our stuff there for the day, which was great. The plan was to go to the Train Station (Atocha) and buy tickets to Seville for later that evening. It was great to be outside! The fifteen-minute walk to the Atocha took us by the Prado museum and the botanical gardens. It was a balmy, busy morning, and it was great to look around and smell the air and listen to Spanish. Ally and I began speaking Spanish to each other then. We had absolutely nothing on us, just money belts, and it felt great after lugging our stuff around for twenty-four hours. The Atocha is beautiful. It’s a massive, brick, gorgeously architected building. We went in, and to our surprise there was a massive rainforest in the middle of the first floor, much like the tropical room at the Smith College botanical gardens. It was incredibly hot and humid in the Atocha, for the sake of the rainforest. We made our way to the line to buy tickets. There are multiple speeds of train in Spain: the AVE is the fastest, and most expensive, followed by the Altera. Those were the only two offered on that day. The Altera was sold out, but the AVE was only eight Euros more. We bought tickets for 5:00. After that, we headed to El Rastro. El Rastro is the biggest flea market in something--Europe, Spain, the World, I don’t remember. When we finally got there, after getting pretty lost, we were bummed because the Rastro would supposedly close in ten minutes. As it turns out, it stays open an hour later than our guidebook said it would. There were people selling everything--usually on blankets on the ground. I soon spotted the first Spanish rooster for my collection. Close to it, there was a tiny fruit stand. Ally and I bought a kilo of mandarin oranges for a Euro. At this point I was walking with a bag of mandarins in my right hand and a ceramic rooster in my left. Hey, it’s better than a map and a camera. We continued and found the bulk of the stands. Our ears beat our eyes to our first Spanish street performer: a very interesting looking man in a maroon velvet jester costume playing accordion (the Amelie theme song, no less), while riding a very tall unicycle.


We kept walking, and I spotted the perfect tourist bag. I bought it, and it came with great conversation with the venders. Three people ran the stand: a middle-aged man and woman, and a young man. We had a great time talking to them, about the bag (made of cotton from Madrid!), about mandarins (we learned a lot), about Seville, etc. This was the first real conversation we had in Spanish with random Spaniards. I also bought some red plastic earrings to replace ones I recently lost. Ally and I made our way to the Plaza Mayor. It was exciting, because when we were getting near it I started to recognize places from my visit to Madrid in 2006. The Plaza Mayor was as magnificent as ever.
We walked around a bit, and marveled at the performers in costume that included Yoda, Minnie Mouse, and two Poohs. I really wanted to return to the shoe store (Lobo) where I had bought my red polka-dotted Flamenco shoes three years ago. I was pleased that I remembered exactly how to get there from the Plaza Mayor. It was unfortunately closed, since it was Sunday, but it was still exciting to see the shoes (or the kid version, at least) in the window!
I also remembered that I had bought big red plastic “Flamenco” earrings and a necklace in a tacky souvenir shop near the Plaza Mayor during my last trip. In the past three years, I managed to lose both. Despite my usually lacking sense of direction, I was extremely proud to find this exact store in a sea of tacky tourist shops. They still had the earrings and necklaces exactly where they had them three years ago, so I finally replenished.
At that point, it was time to return to the hostel to get our stuff and head to the train. We wandered through La Puerta del Sol, where the construction from three years ago was still going on, and we managed to find the hostel with no difficulty. We loaded our stuff back into the elevator and retraced our steps from that morning to the Atocha. I got great pleasure out of the sound produced when my suitcase rolled across crosswalks: the sound was smooth on the painted white stripes, and rough on the black pavement. The three rolling suitcases between us made for quite the rhythm section. We made it to the Atocha, and went straight for the food. We got two Bocadillas de la Tortilla (Ally’s first Spanish Tortilla!) para llevar, and proceeded to the primer piso, which was of course up a floor. They had these contraptions--the love-child between escalators and moving sidewalks--that were moving ramps. The only problem was that gravity was against us, and had they not been so crowded I feel like we could have dislocated our shoulders because of how hard the suitcases wanted to roll down. The train station is great--it’s so clean and well organized. We found our way to our gate, and guessed one of the two lines (correctly--phew). We descended another ramp and walked all the way to the second-to-last car and found our seats. It was worth the extra eight Euros to get the fancy train: it was very clean and comfortable.

We watched the movie that was playing--a very serious film about a teenage boy who gets beat up a lot but never tells his parents--and looked out the window. There was not much to see, lots of piles of dirt. There was one perfectly constructed, adorable yellow and pink house in the middle of a barren wasteland that reminded me of 1950s bomb testing houses (which I only know about from the new Indiana Jones movie of course). We stopped at La Ciudad Real and Cordoba before arriving in Seville after an exact two and a half hours. The AVE promises a refund if it arrives more than five minutes late. We were down to business right when we arrived at the station. Ally watched the bags while I used the ATM. I watched the bags while Ally went to the bathroom. The bags joined us while we bought calling cards. And then we went to call our first taxi, where we had our first adventure.
It was very unclear how the taxis worked. There were two lanes of taxis, and people on the curb. People seemed to be just going up to them, so we went up to a taxi that seemed free. Nobody stopped for us. Finally, an English-speaker told us that we should have stayed at the front of the line. We returned to the front, but we think people were mad that we apparently cut the line. After that, everyone else behind us was getting taxis except us. Finally, a woman told us to cross the street, where a taxi had spotted us and was ready. I guess they pull into the second lane to load or something. The driver was sympathetic, and managed to fit all of our stuff into the back. He brought us to the top of la calle Farnesio, which our hostel was on.
Farnesio is a tiny street, if you can call it that, about four feet wide. There are three hotels next door to each other: Hotel Amadeus, which is very fancy and composer-themed, Hostal Buen Dormir, where we stayed, y la Pension Cordoba, which my parents are considering for their stay.

We went in the entryway, where there was an old-fashioned cast iron gate. The man in charge let us in. It was a very interesting looking place complete with the “blue-tinted floor” that my favorite travel guide Rick Steves had described. Our room on the top floor was right next to the rooftop terrace. After getting settled in, Ally and I went to find dinner. A slightly wider street nearby hosted sepetecientos restaurants and cafes. We chose “La Mezquita” because it seemed to be authentic Spanish food in our price range. This dinner was so much fun. We were more awake than the previous night, and so glad to have safely arrived that we could really enjoy ourselves. We had a delicious paella, a fish thing, and the first Sangria of the semester. It wasn’t very crowded, so we were the center of attention. All of the waiters and bartenders took a turn talking to us, trying out English, and answering our questions. There was a picture of snails behind us, so we asked how to say their name in Spanish. The waiter told us (I forget what it is) and added, “Snakes” in English to clarify. We hadn’t really processed yet that we weren’t going to get the check until we asked for it, so we were there for about two hours, just speaking Spanish to each other too. We finally asked for the check and left, with promises to return soon. At that point, Ally and I wanted to walk. We had seen an heladeria earlier, and headed in that direction to celebrate the balmy sixty-degree night. It turned out to be closed, a sad fate I have suffered many nights since when seeking a late-night ice cream fix. We continued wandering the streets of el Barrio Santa Cruz. It was very quiet and empty, and we wondered where the people were, even though it was Sunday night. We finally found one bigger road, alongside which was a bike lane separated by a short fence. We also made our biggest discovery at this time: La Sevici. La Sevici is a bike rental program. There are stations all over where the bikes are docked. One simply enters their Sevici card which liberates the bike, and they are on their way. You get thirty minutes free, and after that you have to pay an hourly fee. However, you can return the bike to any of the stations. We saw a million people riding them on the bike lane. They have headlights and everything! A year-long pass only costs thirteen euros, according to the CIEE handbook, but it takes four weeks to process, which is no fun. The other alternative is to buy a pass every week for seven euros, which is not preferable, but worth it. A friend and I are also going to look into buying cheap bikes for the semester. Ally and I kept walking, and although we knew we were in the right area, we were a little lost. It was okay, because we mostly explored and now we know that area really well. We returned to the room and went to bed, already enchanted by Sevilla.

Fotos

Fotos:
#1: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2008575&l=d16f1&id=1232310007

#2: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2008605&l=792d5&id=1232310007

Day One (ish)

The journey began at 3:00 pm American time on Friday, January 16th. After waking up at 7:00, finishing packing, failing to restore order to the house as I had promised, seeing a friend, and bidding my final farewell to the cat, just in case, my parents came home from work and we hit the road. We made it to Logan Airport around 5:30 pm, where we met up with Ally, my travel buddy. She was stopped by security because of her fiber powder and had to have her backpack examined. Besides that, everything went smoothly, and at 7:20 we took off.

The flight was easy and quick—a mere five hours to Shannon Airport in Ireland. A bunch of people got off while the rest of us waited in the plane for about an hour to continue to Dublin. Luckily, the plane cleared enough so that two rows of four seats opened up right next to us. Ally and I spent the hour wait sleeping (maybe?), sprawled out with five pillows and blankets apiece. We landed in Dublin at 7:30 am Irish time, which was 2:30 am American time. Needless to say, we were pooped. Frank (a family friend from Ireland) had shared his recommended way to do Dublin in a few hours. We hopped on a city bus and went downtown. We followed Frank’s directions to Bewley’s Cafe, where we had a much-needed breakfast.

The striking thing about Dublin was how nice everyone was. We asked people for directions, and they went above and beyond, smiling the whole time.
We began Frank’s walking tour, which led us through the beautiful St. Stephen’s Green. It is called that for a reason--it looked like June in New England, complete with flowers and grass and birds. We kept walking and got distracted by a pretty building. We went in, and it turned out to be the National Museum of Archeology and History. We talked to the guy, and he was happy to answer questions (best way back to the airport) and discuss Spain and the Celtics. Admission was free, so we had a quick look-around. It was cool, with coins and shoes and Vikings. There were a bunch of other branches of the national museums, and next time I’m in Dublin I’d definitely like to check them out. We next went to Trinity College, and walked around a little bit, oohing and ahhing at the paperback gift store version of the Book of Kells, since we didn’t want to fight the long-term tourists to see the real thing. We explored Temple Bar, and heard a street musician, which was good because I refused to leave Dublin without seeing one. He was tormented enough, so I was satisfied.
The only problem (in addition to our extreme fatigue and lack of popped ears) was our carryon luggage. Our backpacks contained our laptops and books, so after a couple hours of lugging then around we needed a break. After only a couple hours we asked someone which bus went to the airport, and he politely pointed to the sign next to us which had a picture of a bus on top and a picture of a plane on the bottom. After falling asleep leaning on each other on the upper level of the bus (the young men speaking Portuguese behind us commented “que buen amichi!”), Ally and I made it back to the airport.
It was approximately 1:00 when we got to the airport and Ally was stopped again by security. Our flight was at 4:00. By then it was raining like crazy, and it was freezing. I was very glad that my mom had encouraged me to bring my coat. We were so tired, and debated allowing ourselves to fall asleep at the gate, but we feared not waking up in time. We opted for caffeine instead, and we managed to kill three hours, mostly playing with Ally’s phone card. Finally there was an announcement that our flight was an hour late, as had been several others due to the rain. We spent the remaining time trying to figure out the relationships between a large group of people. The conclusion was that they were three sets of cousins and their parents. Finally we got on the plane. We met a middle-aged Irish man who was going to Madrid to visit his brother. We determined that we were both staying on the same street for the night, and Ally and I debated asking him if he wanted to share a cab. As we were exiting the plane, he asked us just that. Our camaraderie with Ro and his travel buddy (friend? We thought partner), Dave, made the next leg of the journey totally easy. All we had to do was grab our bags from the carousel and walk with Dave to the taxi place, where Ro had already gotten one for us. Our new friends explained that they go to Madrid once a year to reunite with their musician friends. They are music producers, and the brother to be visited is in a band, so they planned to spend their thirty-six hours in Madrid drinking and hearing music with their friends. It was funny observing their fear of driving on the “wrong” side of the road, since Ally and I had been in their shoes all morning. We arrived at the Hostal Cervantes around 9:00 pm. Ro and Dave unloaded our stuff, and refused to let us pay for half the cab. We bid our farewells and thanks as we entered the building. Our hostel is one of three in the same building; my parents will be staying in the one directly above us in April.
Inside the building was a ridiculously old green elevator. Ally and I laughed at it and began lugging everything up the stairs.


Other guests came down the stairs and asked us why we weren’t using the elevator. After confirming that it did, in fact, work, we continued our way to the second floor (which is really the third, since the floors start at zero). The hostel was really nice. There was a great living room with furniture, guidebooks that people had left, flowers and paintings on the walls. There was also wireless! Some background: I called hostels a few days before leaving. When I called this hostel, the man on the phone asked my name, and I said, “Sophia.” He confirmed, “Lucia?” “No, SOPHIA.” “Si, Lucia!” When we arrived, I explained the discrepancy, since my passport told the truth. I had been considering telling him that I go by Lucia, and having Ally call me it so he could save face, but decided against it. He laughed when I explained the bad phone connection. I immediately impressed him by saying “Tenemos sepetecientos bolsos!” “Sepetecientos” is a word that I learned from my Spanish professor freshman year which means “a bajillion.” We were completely exhausted at this point. It was 9:00 pm Saturday, and we had not really slept since 7:00 am Friday. We were also dirty and hungry. We Skyped with Clarkies who are in Madrid for the semester, to try to meet up. It was difficult to make a plan, especially because we did not have cell phones, and in the end it all fell through, which I was fine with. We showered and ventured out to find food. It was very busy out--Saturday night in Madrid--but we found a place to eat, managed to stay awake through dinner, and finally returned to the hostel (after getting a little lost) and fell fast asleep.