May 21st- Story time!

Today has been INCREDIBLE! we started off the day with breakfast at the hotel which was AMAZING! It was buffet style with TONS of fresh fruit and bread and really strange local foods. I had coconut yogurt-- I wish they had it in the states because it is my new favorite flavor.
After breakfast we walked to the Prado museum and met our tour guide Grego (muy guapo!). We first saw paintings by Velazquez then then made our way to the Goya paintings. Grego spoke in spanish the entire time but I actually followed everything he said (yay spanish!). After the Prado, we had lunch on a terrace (i had this sandwich with a fritatta-type egg potato patty called "una tortilla espanola." it was SO good!) After lunch we met our tour guide at the Reina Sofia museum and saw paintings by Picasso (GUERNICAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!) and Dali. It's alright, you can be jealous. I can't even tell you how incredible the paintings were in person. I was awestruck!

Okay... story time.
On the way back from the museum we were walking through a big crowd of people by our hotel. I felt a tug on my purse and realized that a lady unzipped it and STOLE MY WALLET. I quickly realized what happened and chased her down and stole it back. :)
Here's a play by play:
There were two women working together to pickpocket me. One unzipped my purse and took my wallet and gave it to another. The one that handed off the wallet pretended to have it and ran off like she was trying to get away. She pretended that she had my wallet so that I would chase her but I saw her hand it to the other lady who acted like she was looking at a map, so i stormed up to her and snatched it from her hands. They hadn't had time to even open my wallet before I had it back in my hands, so nothing was missing. my hotel was right there so i ran inside and told everyone about it. CRAZYYY!! I'm now known as the pick-pocket girl and people tell me I'm their hero. Hahaa.

I figured out a way to clip my wallet in my purse so that there is no way that anyone can take it. And we are all super paranoid now... which i guess is good. They say that madrid is the worst for pickpocketing and valencia is SO MUCH better.

After that fiasco, we (me and 5 other girls: Kaytee, Erin, Laura, Jessie, & Alex) went shopping and walking around the city. We shared a pitcher of sangria at a local restaurant (spain's famous drink--basically wine and brandy with fruit) and headed out to do some more shopping.

Multiple hours of shopping later... Alex and I were exhausted so we headed back to the hotel to relax while the rest of the group went to find dinner. We all met up again at 9:30 to get drinks. We started out at a restaurant about a block away when we saw the boys (Jeff, Eric, Carl) sitting inside and had the BEST SANGRIA ever! There was TONS of fruit: apples, grapefruit, pears, oranges, lemons, etc and tasted like heaven. After two pitchers, we walked into a small cerveceria and I ate a dinner of patatas bravas (the potoates with the red sauce from the previous post) and all of us shared two bottles of wine. We left there and stopped at a small cafteteria to eat icecream and dessert. We sat outside on a beach and were constantly bombarded with people handing out cards for free drinks and free entrances to bars and discotecas. Thankfully the boys arrived shortly after and we all headed to an irish pub. It was PACKED. There were tons of americans mixed in with the various nationalities and tons of american music playing. We ran into ISA kiddos and had "screaming orgasm" shots (baileys, kaluha, and a little vanilla vodka-- SO GOOD!) We stayed for awhile and chatted and just spent time enjoying the wonderfulness that is Spanish night-life before deciding it was probably time to go. On the walk back, there were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people en la puerta del sol chanting and yelling and dancing. We figured out later that it was for the fútbol game. Those Spaniards sure do love some soccer.