Exploring on my own and La Noche en Blanco

So Saturday I went out in search of a cardigan and brown flats (succeeded in finding one of the two (cardigan, in case you were wondering)). It was kind of nice to just be on my own and go where I wanted to go and look like a silly tourist and take pictures of everything. And to get lost and find my way again.

Also went in search of a Starbucks...was craving something familiar (let me tell you...it was not familiar. Their milk here is not refrigerated so my iced beverage was kind of room temperature...I'm looking forward to colder weather and hot drinks) and looking for some instant coffee since our host mom is out of town for a few days. Ended up wandering between Puerta del Sol, Paseo del Prado, and Gran Via. Here are lots of pictures I took:


Mousetrap by Agatha Christie is playing.


Spain has a church of Scientology as well.




Their Starbucks' have WAY better pastries than ours do! THEY HAVE QUICHE!!!!


This is a bank. Say WHAT?







And Arthur Miller's All My Sons is also playing in Spain.



Haagen Daaz theatre. It is a THEATRE showing a MUSICAL and they serve ice cream in cones made out of crepes. And waffles. We will definitely be making a stop here at some point. Unfortunately, tickets to the show are 40 Euros at the cheapest. :-\

Then I went out that night with some of the girls and Julian (the German exchange student) for La Noche en Blanco, a night where all the streets of Madrid stay open, lots of dancing, music, theatre performances, museums...it's silly to stand in line for anything when it's all outside too! So we went dancing for a little bit, then just wandered until we got too tired. The pictures kind of stink cuz my camera doesn't do night very well, but I posted some of the better ones.

Puerta del Sol


I'm pretty sure this is Gran Via, kind of like Madrid's equivalent to Broadway in NYC, I think?


This is where they had dancing.


Emily, Kait, Kristen


Emily and I with Kristen's fan


Our good roomie going out picture




Paseo del Prado...HOLINESS. All these streets were literally wall to wall bodies.



If you look closely at the girl playing with the bubbles...why yes, that is a penis shaped bubble maker. They were extremely political bubble makers, actually. And then the random penis one.



We saw some music.


We saw some dancing.


And I bet you can't guess what restaurant this is that we ended our Noche en Blanco in. Yup. McDonalds. Another thing that Europe does 10x better than us. It was a PLUSH McDonalds. And the only reason we went here was because everywhere else was ridiculously busy.

We ended the night officially at the Museo del Vino with some sangria, and then Emily and I made it home at about 3:30am. Good night. Slept a lot the next day though.