Intercambios, Mexican and El Retiro

So my school here has this program called Intercambio, where basically you and someone from Spain get matched up by the school for the purpose of bettering your language skills. They practice their English with you, and you practice your Spanish with them. I was a little eerie about doing it at first, due to the inevitable awkwardness of the first time you guys meet up, but I decided it was a good opportunity to take advantage of. I am SO happy I did it. First off, my first meet-up with Patricia wasn't awkward at all. We went to a restaurant a few blocks away from my house for tapas, and we just talked about how I'm liking Spain, things I want to do, and places she's been. She also showed me around Alcala, including a lot of areas I never knew existed, and she taught me some cultural stuff about Spain. She's super outgoing like me, so it was easy to jump into personal conversations. Since our first hang-out, she's been an awesome friend to me, which brings me to my next point. My American friends and I have been craving Mexican food extremely badly, and Patricia said she knew of a place in Madrid with really good Mexican, so she offered to take us all. It was really cool to finally mix my intercambio and my American friends together, and the food was absolutely AMAZING. She also took us to this park in Madrid called El Retiro. It's really famous, and absolutely beautiful. We went around sunset time so it was perfect. There's also a lake in the middle of the park where you can rent rowboats and paddle around. Apparently it's a really big attraction because my friends and I wanted to do it, but the line was so long. Instead we sat by the lake and watched everyone else :) it was really an awesome day.

Going to Barcelona this weekend which I'm REALLY excited for! I cannot believe there's only one month left of my program...I'm already trying to plan a way to come back to Spain.

Patricia and I

The lake in El Retiro (with my friend from New York!)