Running My Stateside Games

Monday & Tuesday

I slept in a little Monday morning, and it was so good. I finally got up around 11:00 and got ready for the day. I headed downtown at around 12:45 and met up with Cristina, Jazmín, Abi, Manu and Josué to watch the mascletá. I don't know if you've picked up on it, but everyday from March 1 to March 19 at 2:00 in the afternoon, there is a mascletá in the Plaza Ayuntamiento (the centro centro, where the city hall is). Anyway, when that was over, Jessica and Macy came to find me, and from there, we just walked all around the city center, looking at fallas, enjoying all the little stands set up on each street corner. We went to a Mercadona and got a few items, ten had a picnic in one of the many little parks around the area. It was so peacful.

We walked around most of the afternoon, and I finally headed home around 7:30. I relaxed a little bit, packed my bags, ate dinner at 9:30 (tasty spaghetti) and then got ready for the night. I was headed to meet Jessica and Macy at our normal meeting spot at the bridge when MAcy called me. Jess had been taking pictures of one of the fallas near their house when the man at the berbena (block party) saw her and invited her to come have paella with them. I went to meet them, and we all had paella and drinks with the super friendly people at the Falla Palau. The paella had rabbit, chicken, and snails. I'd never eaten snails before, but I tried it (the fabulous woman there was showing us all how to) and LOVED it. After eating, we went into the tent with our new friends and danced to the Elvis band that was playing. So amazing!

Around 1:00, we left to meet up with our other friends to watch the Castillo from the Puente de Aragón again. It was Cristina, Jazmín, Manu, Markos, David, Gaby, Mela, Miriam, María, Samu, Lukas, and of course, Macy, Jessica, and me. It was even better this night that Sunday night. Which is quite a feat. Afterwards, Jessica, Macy and I went to find their friend Celeste, who was visiting from Florence. From there, we met back up with Lukas, Markos, David, Gaby, Miriam, Samu and mela in the Plaza de la Virgen, and then headed to a berbena that was playing awesome electronic music. We stayed there for a while, until about 4:00, and then Jessica, Macy and me ran into Megan, Anna, Morgan and Ronnie. We walked around with them for a while, then starting heading back around 4:50. As we were walking by a churros place, one of the employees gave us two huge bags of churros and buñuelos for free.

I finally got home around 5:30, grabbed my bags, and then caught the bus to the metro station. I took the yellow metro a couple stops, then transferred to the red and rode that on out to the airport. I caught my flight to Madrid at 8:00, got there around 8:45, and then checked in for my flight to Philadelphia. I waited a couple hours in the airport, then at 11:30, left for the states! When I arrived in Philly, it was about 2:30 local time, but 7:30 at night for me. I slept a little bit on the plane, but having pulled an all-night, I was still really tired.

I hung around in the Philly airport for about 4 hours, and my flight was delayed about 45 minutes. Finally, we were in the air. I got to Dallas about 9:30 CST. Patrick picked me up from the airport shortly after I arrived. We went to his new house so I could have a look around - definitely the cutest house in the world. They are going to be so happy living there! After that, Patrick took me to the Pearce's house. I tried to be social, but I was so tired that I ended up just heading on to bed.

Back in the US... A,

Leigh