Yesterday I went to the Plaza Mayor. It is a really touristy place with a huge central plaza that is lined with shops and places to eat. It was in the old Austrias district which is the oldest area in Madrid and highly influenced by Moorish architecture. In my opinion, it was BEAUTIFUL! By far my favorite sights that I have seen so far I can´t wait to share pictures. I had a self guided tour in my guide book that I did that day which was perfect to see everything like the old Royal Palace.

Today, I had my first semi fiasco. There aren´t really a lot of open air pools in Madrid, who knows why bc it´s so hot, but I wanted to swim and tan a little so I found a few options in my guidebook. I chose one and got directions using the Metro. First of all - I guess the renovated parts of the Metro are the nice clean ones but I used some of them today that were very sub par. Ick. So then I got off at my stop and had some complicated instructions on how to get to the pool. Let´s just say after walking up and down the streets for about 20 minutes I gave up. I came back to shower and went shopping instead! The most popular store around here is ZARA so that´s where I headed. I think they have it in the U.S. but I have never heard of it before. Anyways, I loved it and bought a new dress to wear.

Another note to mention - here in Spain they pronounce their C´s like ¨th¨so I am having to get used to that. Grathias...lol. It made it even harder to understand everyone at first because I thought their words were trailing off. Oh yeah and for dinner tonight another interesting thing - we had thistle. The plant. Seriously. But it was good! And I got really excited when Maria showed me they had the entire 8 seasons of the West Wing in English. I have never watched it but it is comforting to know if I am ever bored I have something to watch that is familiar to me other than the Spanish television!

Tomorrow, I have the whole day free without any English lessons so we will see what kind of adventures I come up with!