Peace, dookie

Oh hey, followers! I feel bad for going so long without writing. Was it that long or does it just seem long? I don't know but either way it's just because I'm lazy. Let me catch you all up. 

Exciting things that happened..

- Aunt Helen came to Madrid!! My giirrrrrrll from home, Ashley's aunt came and had her layover in Madrid for a few days! Me and Janie met up with her Monday night and went to this really neat place, Mercado de something or other. It was so cool! I'm gonna go back and take pictures. But to explain, it's  a modern looking building, with tall glass windows outside kind of market full of different booths of fresh food and drinks and anything you can think of! Like there's an olive booth here, a FROZEN YOGURT booth there (first time to see frozen yogurt in spain), some cheese here, the works. Tuesday we went back to the big city and had dinner with her at the cutest family owned Spanish restaurant! Me and Jane told the owner we would bring alll our new friends back there one day and then he told us he was retiring and they're turning the place into a bar. Like there aren't enough of those. But it was great, aunt Helen knows her places to go in Madrid! 

 Me and Aunt Helen!

 - I met my intercambio! Her name is Laura and she's really cool! I don't remember if I already told you about her or not, so sorry about it. She's actually from Romania but she moved to Spain like 10 years ago. She has a serious boyfriend and she's 23. She talks to me like I'm a little kid I feel like. But Jane's intercambio is friends with mine, so we are going to go out with them and they are going to take us to a place where we can dance with spaniards haha

Aunt Helen strikes again!

doesn't this salad look deliciouss?!!? its pilar's, not ours

- pilar is on a special new diet. apparently its the talk of europe. now pilar only eats what dr dukan says she can eat! strict diet. a lot of the stuff looks really good and healthy that she makes, but dont worry, she's still frying us ham so that we can get a taste for real spanish food. 

paella!

- I can't complain because we have friends here that are barely fed at all. Pilar is a good cook and she made paella last week!! It had all sorts of things in it. It's a rice dish with a certain flavor of spices but I don't know how to say them exactly. The meat in it varies. Pilar's paella has mussels, shrimp, clams, chicken, and calamari. It was reaal good. There was some onion and red pepper in it too. It's kind of a lot of work eating it though, gotta peel it and what not.

- We met up with two of our friends Amy and Nikki and went to the Reina Sofia on Saturday because it was free after 2:30! It's a huge museum of modern art and it was pretty packed. There we saw some of Dali's work and Picasso's work too! I snapped a picture of Guernica, the really famous one, even though you aren't supposed to take pictures ooops

 a portion of guernica

- We knew that Real MAdrid, Madrid's fútbol league, was playing Saturday night in Madrid and have been wanting to go to a game but had no idea about how to get tickets or any of tthat. But we decided to give it a shot and ended up going to the game against Levante, a team out of Valencia. Apparently they were ranked 15th out of 20 Spanish teams, so we won duh. It was so much fun! Just like a football stadium would be in the United States, and the fans just like at an Auburn game. It made me really excited for football season! We were bummed that Casillas wasn't playing that game. But it was so fun to go! 

Me Jane and Nikki outside the stadium

(PS my camera is kind of messed up. I had to turn the flash off when we were in a museum and I think I changed some settings and I can't get it back to normal so everyone is orange and blurry now)

- Ready for this?? So yesterday we couldn't help but notice there was a lot of moving of boxes going on for a while in the house. Boxes from the attic to downstairs and wherever. Finally we asked what was going on and Pilar mentioned that her daughter Irene and her husband Peter are moving to Sweden. How sad. But first they are living here for a month and sharing a bathroom with us! yayyy. I bet you're wondering about the title "peace, dookie". You might be surprised to know that dookie is actually Irene's dog! So dookie goes to Sweden to after March. How sad.. bye dookie. It's no longer going to be "the huskies". Just "husky". Just Neva.

- So sometimes when we go meet up with friends we go to this churreria in our neighborhood. The owners are literally the sweetest people I have met in this country, maybe even ever! Flor y Salvador are their names. They are way too nice to us. Me and Jane went in one day last week and got some coffee. They make everything better! It wasn't the best day but they cheered us up and they even loaned us an umbrella to walk home with. I want them to adopt us. Is that too much to ask? I don't know what else to say, but they definitely deserved their own little segment here.