Meeting Up With Friends in Distant Places

I wanted to get this post in before the craziness of the week is about to begin! It's going to be a whirlwind of a wonderful weekend! We are headed to the beach on the east coast (Mediterranean Sea) this time! I'm super pumped to just spend some down time with Taylor and Tristan!

For those of you who don't know, Taylor was my freshman year roommate at UNH. Just to give you a taste of what we looked like freshman year...

Taylor, Kim, and I. 

again....see we were always weird...and yes, I still did ducky face back then. 

and there we are again, being awesome.

Anyways, a little blast from the past. Tristan lived in our dorm, Alexander, with us freshman year...but we didn't talk to him that much because we didn't know how AWESOME he was. Taylor obviously figured it out because now they're dating! So cute. 

So I was able to snag almost a whole week with these 2 on their trip across Europe! They've been on the road since May 5th and they fly home next Thursday! Madness. So I am super lucky to get to hang out with them. Also, Taylor's birthday is tomorrow the 17th (technically today already in Spain) and Tristan's birthday is on Saturday the 20th so we get to celebrate BOTH birthdays together!!

Today an amazing thing happened. Espe took the day off from work so that they could go visit Mara's grandparents in Segovia where I was a few weekends ago. (Her dad's parents). This meant Mara would be with her mom and I was able to do whatever! So I headed into Madrid and met up with them at the bear statue. 

Honestly I was expecting this bear to be massive, but it was about the same size as an adult. For some reason it's a huge tourist attraction and everyone seems to take a picture with the bear... I don't get it. 

I should also mention that it was 100 degrees in Madrid today. Like WOAH. I totally started to give my speech of all the cool spots Cristina had showed me earlier. Basically they had seen a lot of european cities and they were past all the sight seeing. Taylor and Tristan just wanted to relax!! So we got some tinto de verano and headed for the park to relax in the shade :)

so we found the gardens by the royal palace :)

and here we are in front of it!

the green looked too pristine to actually be resting on it, so instead we choose a wonderful shaded area under a tree. I was thinking to myself *wow, I really wish we had a blanket* and then next thing I know Tristan is taking out a sheet to lay on! Heaven.

Before we knew it we were starving and it was time for "lunch". I put this in quotations because it was like 4pm. We started wandering and found a place that had nice outdoor seating. We tried some bocadillo, because I was sure I knew what those were! Turns out when you order a chorizo sandwich, literally all you get is the bread and some chorizo....leaves a little bit to be desired. I'm still not quite sure that I LOVE any Spanish foods yet. I have been trying a lot of foods too, so it's not for lack of trying believe me!

While we were walking around we spotted a Dunkin Coffee (basically Dunkin Donuts with a interesting name change. It had to happen. Our iced coffee was pretty much an espresso put on ice. 

it worked for us!

It was so so hot walking around the city, so the only thing we really wanted was the pool. We decided to head back out to Rivas where I live and go to the pool that was conveniently open until 9:30. We were thinking we were pretty much the master of the metro until they were doing construction one the line that would have brought us straight there. An hour later we finally made it Conde de Casal where we were able to catch a bus back to Rivas. Unfortunately I told Darah to start walking a little too early, so she was waiting at my house for 15 minutes while we made our way back to the house. I tried to send her a message *she can only receive messages on wifi* hoping that she would be able to get wifi from outside my house. Didn't work. Whoops! She wasn't waiting long so that's good!

We had a nice night at the pool and then Taylor and Tristan made dinner! wahhooo! We had a salad with some chicken on it. DELISH. 

Anyways that's pretty much it! Darah and I will head into Madrid tomorrow to celebrate Taylor's birthday and then on Friday we leave for the beach with them :)

of course before they left I made them take a selfie :)

and now let the crazy weekend shenanigans begin!!!!