Ok, after taking a quick drive to the drugstore to get our 154 digital pics printed (yes! 154! I mean, people, this is Spain!) and to the mall to get my bag repaired (at a price that redefines robbery), I am a little less out of it, so here goes.

Madrid was awesome. It really was. Although 7 days instead of 9 could've been enough. It was the first time I flew but it didn't make any specific impression. Except that 7 hours is a long time. On the way to Madrid I tried to sleep a little, but the flight back was in the middle of the afternoon, so I didn't feel like sleeping. So I watched the three movies and finished reading The Da Vinci Code which I had begun the previous day, making me probably the first human being to read this book in real time. We also had a two-hour delay, which we spent sitting in the plane as well, so I was about 5 years old when we finally got to Montreal and I just wanted to get up and leave.

But, as I said, Madrid was awesome. The weather there is awesome in the summer: the temperature rises to over 40 degrees in the afternoon and the sun set very late, I'd guess between 10 and 11. So the days are long! We did an awful amount of walking, getting lost only once. Please take a look at a map of Madrid, acknowledge the twisted streets and worship us.

We saw many things, many plazas and puertas, which are very nice to look at, but eventually you get it. We saw a novillada which is a type of corrida. We got lost getting there so we arrived an hour after it started - which isn't so bad, we saw that many less bulls die. And the last bull of all won, meaning he didn't crumble to the ground no matter how hard the torero and the helpers tried. I took a picture of him and as of this day he became my personal heroe. We also spent a fair amount of time in Retiro Park, we rented a row boat. We visited a few museums, tried a few restaurants with typical Spanish food. We tried blanco y negro, which is something I'll make for you if you like coffee. We bought 12 bottles of water and/or juice, which I assembled in a very artistic pyramid-like montage before we checked out so the maid would be entertained.

Other than that, I got to use my Spanish and after two or three days of adaptation, my understanding of others improved humongously. Which is a good thing, because once you're out of your hotel or touristic areas, people barely speak English. Actually, the day before we left, I had to call the travel agency to confirm the time they were picking us up at the hotel to drive us to the airport and I decided I wasn't making that call in Spanish, but when I asked the lady who picked up if she spoke English, she said "a little bit" so I gave in.

So right now my three languages are very mixed up. Yesterday before we left, I had to make another call to the agency, and when they transferred me to somebody who took the call in English, I was so confused, my first three sentences were awful translations from ideas thought out in Spanish.

I'll get my pictures on Friday, but I won't have their digital version before a little while - we used my parents' camera and I only took the memory card with me to have the pictures printed. When I bring it back, I'll transfer them to my parents' computer and burn them to a CD for me, and then I'll post some of them.

So I love Spain. Can't wait to go back.