fiestas sorpresas all around

so this weekend has been a blast. on Friday I went to Carabanchel to hang out with my fellow American Audrey. we met up with her friends and went to a big mall called islazul. the only thing we ended up buying was donuts, even though we were there for like 5 hours. by the end my feet hurt really bad, but it was still awesome to meet audreys friends, who were really nice and funny. it was also my first time riding the buses here in Madrid. it wasn't anything too special, but there was one thing that caught me off guard. whenever we stop, the bus tilts down on the side that people enter. I would assume its so people don't have to step up so much or if someones in a wheelchair or something. I don't know. but yeah. different. so we hung out with her friends, then went back to her piso. since we hadn't eaten, her parents took us out to a Chinese restaurant. yay Chinese food! at first they brought out these Styrofoam looking chip things. surprisingly they weren't too bad... but anyway then we got these huge springrolls. I could've just eaten that and been full, but of course, we got more; a noodle dish, lemon chicken, rice, and Chinese bread, which I  might add, is not nearly as good as Spanish bread. but overall it was delicious. so then we went back to the piso. so my grandparents piso is relatively big, it has a kitchen, a big living/dining room, 2 bathrooms and 2 bedrooms and an extra little sitting room. but audreys was extremely small (but her family has some pretty sweet wall hangings) anyway, she has the 2 bedrooms and bathrooms, and then the kitchen/diningroom/living room are all like one big room with a counter kindof cutting off the kitchen. but I liked it. so we got into our pj's, layed down, and talked and listened to music for like an hour. its so cool to think that without rotary, I would never have met Audrey, but here we are, a Californian and Iowan having a sleepover in Spain. just think about that. wow. so we slept until 1045 when her mom woke us up because I had to leave. but we ate breakfast (healthy cereal, ew, and freshly squeezed orange juice, yum) and watched this video that her parents had made of a ton of pictures of them, I think it was some anniversary video or something, but anyway, her parents have been to so many places! its so sweet. I want to travel like that too. I was impressed. so yeah, then I left and came home and hung out for a while.

thennnnn at 1800 my dad and I headed out to our grandparents to watch the Barcelona- Real Madrid game. I ended up not watching it (we lost anyway) but sitting and watching tv with my abuela. she is seriously so awesome. she does cross-stitching (called petipua -like petty pwah- in Spanish if I spelled that right. it doesn't look or sound like a Spanish word but that's what it is, I think...) and she has alzheimers, so she always repeats things but its so fun to talk to her and chat, and since im understanding so much more, its just, I don't know, its great.

 

her beautiful orchids

                                           and her. she is precious. and her name is matilde.

so then we hung out there until about 2030 and then headed out to the bar thing where the party was being set up. I went in, and started helping put out food and stuff like that. then more people were coming in, and I talked with some family and met some of Ana's friends. then at 2130 Ana came. she came in, we sang, and then everyone just hung and talked for a while. then 2 of her best friends, Raquel and Irene, gave a little speech, then we talked some more. throughout this whole thing I met a ton of people, many of which were extremely attractive guys, so I was having a lot of fun. although, im still at that stage where I don't understand when people talk really quickly with each other, and with the loud music on top of that, I was a third wheel most of the time. but I still had fun. a while later they brought out a cake thing and ana blew out a candle. it wasn't really a cake, more like, jeez I don't even know how to describe it, but it was good. so then at about 2300 the parents went home and people started getting drinks and smoking and such. I did take a couple sips of my friends drinks when offered, but other than that I was still just hangin around. then finally at 0100 one of the guys and Irene drove me home because the rest of them were going to a discoteca, and i'm not 18. but I was glad because I was tired. so I got home and slept 11 hours. it was amazing. but here are some pictures from the partay

 

ana (right) and irene

 

Irene and Raquel giving a speech

 

the cake thing. also, that guy in the blue shirt, diego, was super nice and actually talked to me, so that was a plus

 

 

so yeah, that was super fun. also I want to add that today we went out to lunch with our grandparents, and for desert they had these little tubes, like tooth paste tubes, that were filled with either mango or raspberry stuff, and you just squeezed it into your mouth. lol they were actually really good....

 

M