vuvus and yanks.

Ahem. I wish to begin today by declaring my permanent hatred for the vuvuzela. I will come back to this nuisance shortly.

Madrid was cooler today than it has been recently, I am SO grateful for the slight relief. Alabama may be the death of me when I come home and have to get used to more than 87 degrees and humidity. Oh humidity.

Sara and I hopped on the metro pretty early this morning (for a day off, it was pretty early) to go to El Rastro. El Rastro is kind of like an open air flea market, except it's individual and sectioned off booths full of everything from clothes to paintings to "as seen on tv" items to magnets to antiques to scarves, etc. The best part? It literally covers like five blocks of a section of Madrid. They close and block off the area to cars and there are just people EVERYWHERE. Spaniards, Americans, and every other type of European to can imagine. I heard languages today that I've never heard in person before. I held my bag closer to my body than I ever had before (pickpocketers are professionals in Madrid). I spent more money than I planned to, but I'm also pretty much finished with souvenirs for everyone. I think. I won't say what I bought today. I don't want to ruin any surprises!

We spent close to three hours at the Rastro then came home to eat the sandwiches Paloma made for us that we accidentally forgot here. Oops. I have to say I enjoyed sandwiches much more today than past days because our sandwiches were still cold when we ate them! Spanish ham tastes so much better when it hasn't been sitting in my bag for four hours. After lunch, we napped. We needed naps, badly. I cannot seem to catch up on sleep here. I'll think I'm doing great and getting used to the Spanish schedule, but then exhaustion hits me like a ton of Iberian hams.

At 4:30, we left Paloma's to head towards Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, home to Real Madrid F.C. It was awesome! Real Madrid was playing Manchester United in a charity alumni match called "Africa en mi alma." of course, I know next to nothing about soccer and the two clubs that I watched today, but I definitely have a new appreciation for soccer. The atmosphere was incredible, and it wasn't even a real match! They do chants and they do the wave SOOO much better than we do. I still don't understand the game and why there are so many people on the field. But it was an experience I wouldn't change for anything.

The stadium was almost full. They had four parachuters drop down before the match and two of them held the flags for each club. Then they introduced all of the alumni players, which kind of took forever. Everyone ooh-ed and ahh-ed at every play and grimaced when someone hit the ground. Also, each small child had a stupid vuvuzela. I thought at first "how cool that something from South Africa and the World Cup became so popular all over the world!" Then, I realized that the noise. Never. Stops. I don't like loud things. Vuvuzelas stress me out.

The game was more exciting than other ones I've watched, but Sara and I still left after the first half (sorry, fútbol fans) to beat the crowd on the metro and make it home in time for dinner.

There are two newbies staying with us and Paloma now. They are from New York and interesting. I'm not sure if it's just the difference between northern and southern personalities or jet lag or or the fact that Sara and I eat everything and they don't eat meat... But dinner was kind of awkward. Hopefully it'll get better and we'll all get used to being around each other. Yankees. (insert prayers for patience here.)