

Thursday, Chen came to Spain. And now heapos;s gone.
I canapos;t believe how quickly the time came and went. It makes it seem like it was all but a dream. He got here on Cervantes Day, so the plaza and calle mayor and all that was filled with the medieval market. His flight arrived late so we got in late.. But we ended up being able to meet with kyle, kristine and armani for lunch at pollo de alcala after we went to drop off suitcases at my house. The food was pretty good.. Had a half chicken, patatas bravas, croquetas, mollejas (thymus glands of the neck or the heart, prob the heart), maybe one more dish but i dont remember - and we shared it family style. Then we all went to the market to eat crepes and look at other foods and things. We met up with Sam and then Lindsay came.. It was fun times.. But then after a while we all got separated. After walking around a lot and what not, we went to my host familyapos;s house to get ready to go on our trip. There was no electricity and it was getting darker and darker every minute.. After a while we went back out to eat dinner where we ate some pulpo.. It wasnapos;t as good at we would have liked.. But it sufficed. Then we got on a train into madrid and walked around madrid.. It started to rain but i had an umbrella yay. We went into mcdonalds and had some potato wedges.. Which chen loved hilarious... And then we went to the bus station and sat outside til it was time to get on the bus at 1:30. I loved just sitting there and talking to him.. And then on the bus, we both tried to sleep.. He passed out but i had a hard time sleeping until after the break that we had to take.
when we arrived in bilbao, it was still dark and it was cold. We sat at the bus station for a while and then we walked around bilbao. After wandering around we ended up at baden-baden it was a simple breakfast.. And then we continued to walk.. To the hostal, but we go tthere too early.. So we sat in a small plaza nearby. We kept talking for a while and finally at 10, we were able to go in, but the rooms werenapos;t ready. So we sat there for a while but then the man said it was available if we wanted to wait so we waited until 1130? and then we checked in. But then we had to get back to the bus station to catch the bus to durango from which we would take more public transportation to get to the restaurant etxebarri. Cept that we missed the bus i had planned on taking.. But there was another bus we could take that left soon after. It was quite the journey, but a lot of nice people helped us get there. It was beautiful.. The paisaje of the mountains and the small farms and farmhouses were so beautiful to look at. I wish i had more time to just wander around, but after the expensive meal (chorizo, jamon iberico, fois de pato, and bacalao.. And wine that we spilled all over the table.... Hahah) the bus came pretty quickly. We went back to durango and spent some time there. We had a really rich coffee pastry and i bought some lotion because i forgot to bring some on the trip. We caught a bus back to durango but went got of at some stop i forget the name of. We went to carrefour and i reloaded my phone. We walked on some big street to get to casco viejo which was really cute too.. After walking around for a while, we ended up going by some parade in honor of some saint.. I dont know for who/what. Then we went to a little bar where we had pinchos - soooo gooodddd finally, we walked a slow walk back home.. Where we took lots of pictures of buildings, bridges, and statues. We stopped at a park and sat on a bench. The walk was a long one and we needed to rest.. It was cute.. We kissed for a bit.. But then i felt awkward because i hadnapos;t kissed him in so long.. I felt like it was my first kiss all over again. <3 we got back to the hostal, took showers, and went to bed. Chen got three bites from some kind of bicho which i heard during the night.
the next morning we woke up later than the night before.. Hehe~ the blinds were amazing.. Cuz when we woke up we couldnapos;t tell it was sunny at all. We went downstairs to a group of tourists waiting for their rooms to be prepared, but we just took our time and ate our breakfast which i must say wasnapos;t bad at all for a hostal. We got ready and left for the guggenheim. It was a cool visit with free audio guides, cept that the 2nd floor was closed off for a change of exhibition and the flower dog was under construction.. Booooo. Then we went to the museum of fine arts which was really nice.. I didnapos;t think iapos;d enjoy it as much as i did. We walked toward the bus station and found a cute restaurant. We ate the menu special of the day which included: bean pudding?paste? and then something with salmon? and then peppers and squid in its own ink and then bacalao.. And then a dessert which included icecream with walnuts - so chen ate that for me :) it was actually a reallyyyy good lunch and their bread was really good too. We headed back to the station with time to spare. We sat outside for a while and then we got on the bus for the ride back. I had a pretty comfortable ride back because i was basically lying down on chen.. I deno how comfortable he was.. But had a fun ride back.. Hehe xP we took the metro back to atocha and then we had to wait a while for a train to come (we were worried they stopped running) but it eventually came and we took it back to la garena - hotel campanile. We checked in to room 614 and then went out to get dinner at Indalo. I had a tortilla w/ chorizo bocadillo and he had one with calamares. He also had like a dinner plate with some kind of meat, french fries, and salad. We got back and finally went to bed.
the next morning, we woke up late and went to Rastro market. On the way we went into a little bar and got bocadillos (me-tortilla and chen-lomo). We didnapos;t buy that much, but we got a cup of olives and he got some keychains. He also bought me purple earrings and blue ones for lauren. =D. For lunch we went to a hole-in-the-wall place in the rastro area and had two tostas: baby eels and chicken w/ a roasted red pepper. Afterward we got a reallyyyyyyyy sweet drink at dunkin donuts and went to retiro park for a while. For some reason it really smelled of poop all over.. Was it the gingko trees? we decided to go back when we got stuck because the VivAmerica parade stopped us. It was brilliant and festive. There were trucks with bands on top and people in costumes from many different latin american countries~ i was too short to see a lot of it.. But what i could see, i enjoyed. We finally cut across and made it to the train station and went back to alcala. We met up with kyle kristine maya and rebeca at plaza del palacio de arzobispal and we sat talking for a while. Maya said that the paella at los balcones de alcala was good so we decided to go there. But before that, armani came and she, kristine, chen and i went to the last of the mercado medieval to get crepes (armani- chocolate and rasp, me-jamon y queso). Armani went home and then kris chen and i went to los balcones de alcala. We got eggs with jam and potatoes, morcilla, orejas, and paella. Why did we get so much food?? after dinner we went back to the hotel and went to bed.
monday morning i went to classes and could not sit still the whole time. I coudlntapos; wait til it was 2 and time for me to see chen again he met me in the plaza :) yes. I could say i met him in the plaza.. And then we went to rocinante for lunch, where the service was great we had a little dish of something with tomatoes and chorizo, magro, a lanza of meat, some meatballs (albondiga), and caracoles. For dessert we got natilla with a cookie in it and then they gave us bonbones icecreams. Good timesssss.
mon- school, rocinante, corte ingles (jamon iberico and physales), el tapon
tues - school, nap, oryza (paella), market, casa botin (gazpacho and suckling pig)
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