Day 13 - Saturday December 18th 2010 (Madrid, Spain)

I woke up with a terrible Hawaiian pizza hangover and stumbled into the shower. We had been avoiding Maria so Lijah wouldn't have to pay more rent but it looks like she left me a note and … dangit. She wanted Lijah to buy her an oak table! oh noooo… Around 1:30 the women folk strolled into the house looking well rested and gleefully eager. “We're ready for a thrilling day of restless movement!”, they exclaimed. Lijah and I shot them a glare of challenging brevity and with our hearts full of spontaneity and our mouths full of screams we ran out the door and in the bus' general direction. Soon we were in Madrid once more and we were on our way to Sol so we could see if rollerblading while biking is possible. On the metro we met a catholic Priest who gave us a tambourine and some stickers, we were ever so grateful. Later we explored the streets of Madrid while on our way to the tourism office and then we hopped another metro to go to the Salvador Dali exhibit in the northern part of Madrid. The Dali exhibit was amazing and lurid and full of interesting plaques in spanish and it was interesting to learn what an influence Goya had on Dali and to watch video of him. My favorite room was the green room. After the Museum we went to the streets again and got our picture taken with an alien and a falling man and we ate some tortilla bocadillos and some jamon at a small restaurant. The restaurant was packed and after I drank all of Katie's water and she yelled out "he drank all my water!" the whole restaurant became silent and just stared at her. It was amazing. I think that moment was when she realized she wanted to be an opera singer. After we finished eating we were exploring some more and decided to go to the Madrid Temple, so we hopped on the metro and went to the nearest stop. After we went above ground we found ourselves a bit lost so I asked a girl where the temple was, she didn't know so Katie and I ran after a group of people we had seen. I asked the group where the Temple is and immediately I realized I may have made a big mistake. This was no ordinary group of spaniards. This was a mob of spanish clowns and they looked angry… OR maybe they were just excited? It got kinda weird after that. They told us where the temple was but they also screamed a lot and started twirling each other about like helicopters and then they performed a scene from back to the future in spanglish and sang tomorrow from annie. By then we just had to join in and it became a bond between us and the spanish clowns that may never be broken. We parted ways in tears and went off in search of our beloved temple once more. Turns out it was only around the corner and so we got to spend quite a bit of time there. We took pictures and learned things and while about to leave we met some missionaries there and we talked to them about what Spain was like for them. I was shocked to find out that one of the dreaded meals in this mission is "Aglkahie" (chickpeas and veggies and mystery meat with vinegar). Apparently the meat they use is usually comes complete with the spine bones and other strange body parts. I had no idea. This was one of my favorite foods. Oh well, its still good. After the temple we headed back to Alcala and I had a nice chat with Katers on the bus. I wish she wasn't going. We went to the hostel and helped them call a cab. Somehow in my broken spanish I asked for the cab to come right away and so it was there in like 5 min. and we had to send it away and ask them to come back at 5:30 the next morning. Lijah and I said our tearful goodbyes to the Ladies and we were off on our way home. I was exhausted but we still had to pack because we were also leaving the next day and so I stayed up till about 5am packing and cleaning. Then I died.