A semester in Espana: Wandering on Saturday

On Saturday, there was a day trip to Salamanca, another really cool place in Spain where one of the first universities ever was built. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going. Originally I signed up for this trip but then withdrew from it because I knew I signed up to also go on the trip on Sunday to Segovia and I didn’t think I could do that much walk (its usually more like climbing) two days in a row. I also was more interested in going to Segovia than Salamanca so I decided I will have to go to Salamanca later on my own when I’m in better shape for walking. Since there was the day trip, a lot of my friends were gone and I still wanted to do something. I txted and fb messaged one of my few friends that I knew that wasn’t going on the trip to see if he wanted to just wander the city with me. I like to wander around Madrid as much as I can just so I can get to know my surroundings better and know where everything is. Its not a terribly large city and I live in a really good location that is pretty close to everything which is awesome.

So I took the metro and met my friend at Gran Via, which is a very famous street in Madrid. Not only does it have a lot of important government buildings but it also has AMAZING shopping! It is supposed to be the Michigan Avenue of Madrid. My main goal for meeting at this location was to find the giant H and M that I had heard lots of people talking about. Spanish style is also so cool and a lot more adventurous than the U.S., which I love because my style is kind of adventurous and wild too.

So anyways, I found my friend and we just decided to walk down the street and see what we could find. Neither of us knew where we were going and I was assuming he might have a better sense of direction than me, which later proved to be a false assumption. We walked for a while down the street and ended up at Retiro Park again, the same place we both were with our other friends yesterday. Since Retiro is so big we decided to explore it again and we found a lot of new things. There are tons of old buildings in there with lots of history. It’s really a very interesting park.

After that we found a metro map and tried to walk in the direction of another park. We ended up going to completely wrong way but we did find the H and M! And it was just as amazing as it was hyped up to be. I was happy. I got a white furry skirt that I love; something I never would have found in the U.S. He got some mustard yellow pants and a scarf but we both tried on full outfits. It was fun. I want to go back and get more stuff.

After that it was about 7pm and we were both tired. I also wanted to make sure I was home in time for dinner this time because I didn’t want my host mom to be mad at me two days in a row.