Several things happened in Madrid.

I left Chattanooga Thursday, and Monday afternoon I finally got to my homestay in Salamanca! What happened in between, you ask? Pues, mucho...

Before I left home, mi gato (Oreo) apparently has some spark of humanity in her, because she didn't want me to go. Juuuuuuust kidding...she just likes sitting in things she's not supposed to sit in.

Thursday morning, my family took me to the Chattanooga airport, where I tried my best to look like a baller before I headed out on my first flight to Charlotte.

The view on the way to Charlotte.

From Charlotte, I flew to Philadelphia, which has a lovely airport, I guess.

In my experience, it is always sunny in Philadelphia. I shouldn't be allowed to make jokes, I'm sorry.

I found two other ISA Salamanca students, Billie and Angie, in the terminal, but we didn't get to sit together on the way to Madrid. My seatmate was a nice man from Andalusia who tried to speak to me in Spanish. We didn't get very far. At this point I suddenly realized I was leaving the country by myself for four months, and my shaking hands and feeling of acute nausea kind of turned me into an anti-social asshole. I put my headphones in, listened to the Lumineers and pretended to sleep.

Six and a half hours later, around 7 a.m. Spain time, we arrived in Madrid! Getting through customs was a snap, but then the other ISA students and I had to wait until 10 a.m. for two of our ISA directors, Rodrigo and Beatriz, to pick us up. We took a bus to our hotel, NH Nacional, which was very modern and centrally located across the street from some botanical gardens and, oh yeah, el Museo del Prado. No big deal.

And this thing.

Most of the other Salamanca and Grenada students arrived that day (Friday), and we got to know each other a little bit. We're from all over the U.S. - Colorado, Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Florida, New Jersey, Kentucky...Que diverso!

But more importantly, I ate a calamari sandwich for dinner that night. It needed ketchup, but I don't think Spain believes in drowning things in ketchup like I do. What the heck is wrong with Europe? #Murica.

Saturday, a local tour guide showed us the highlights in el Museo del Prado and the Reina Sofia, which was just around the corner and houses more modern art like Picasso's Guernica.

La Reina Sofia

Amigas nuevas!

That evening, some of us took a stroll downtown to explore some stores and get some tapas. We noticed that the center of the street was blocked off and that people, mostly parents with small children, were staking out places to sit. We guessed that there would be a parade...

...and we were right. We caught the very beginning of the Cabalgata de Reyes (a parade celebrating the Epiphany). And then we had to squeeze through this crowd to return to our hotel. The three kings were with us that day, because, despite this being one of the European situations our parents warned us about, and none of us got pickpocketed!

Es muy curioso porque the Spanish are very conscious of their energy and water usage, but they go nuts with the electricity during la Navidad and Los Reyes Magos.

Madrid was okaaaaay, but a little too big for my taste. We took a tour bus out of the city Sunday morning and were soon on our way to Toledo!