Red, White, and Blue with a little Rainbow in between

Front entrance of the bullring

So I was informed that I would be giving a tour to the students… cuz I know the city better than they do.  After my last blog post you should know I do not.  Well one student showed up early so I told him I had to run errands if he’d like to join.  So he was my guinea pig for my tour … well we got lost.  Luckily we weren’t too far away from the Colegio but hey that’s the best way to learn right?  I ended up giving the tour and the students thought I had been here before because I was so good so I guess I put on a good act.  This was the first day the students arrived (Friday).  

Statue to honor a matador
killed in the ring

Saturday we went to the main part of Madrid and did a tour of the city and my lord it is gorgeous! I did not get the best pictures because we were in the bus for the most of it but I did get some good pictures outside the bullfighting ring!  We’re going to a bullfight today after our trip to Toledo so that should be pretty exciting!!

Our "traditional" meal

After our tour in Madrid we all had lunch, which was amazing, filled with different types of tapas and sangria.  If you don’t know what tapas are they are basically like appetizers, very small, but a big thing here.  Since the restaurant knew it was an American holiday, 4^th of July, they made us what I guess they thought was a “traditional” dish for an American holiday – stuffed turkey, peas, and French fries.  So basically I guess everyone outside of America just thinks that we have Thanksgiving dinner for every holiday, rather than grilling out with some hot dogs and hamburgers by the lake. 

Road to Plaza de Chueca

Me and a student with a queen

After lunch we were free to do whatever we wanted, so I went with some students to Chueca, which is the gay part of Madrid.  It was full of gay couples everywhere you looked and rainbow flags on every balcony.  For those of you who do not know, yesterday (Saturday) was the gay pride parade.   This was my first experience at one of these parades and it was amazing!  There queens everywhere and guys that could strut in heels better than any girls I know.  So we hung out in the Plaza de Chueca for a few hours and got some mojitos then headed to the Gran Vía where the parade would go through.   There were over a million people there!  Before the parade there were firefighters that were just hosing down the crowd because it was so incredibly hot out there and you can bet by the crowd that was there they absolutely loved it.  It turned into more of a wet t-shirt contest and an ab contest but hey the bodies were not too bad looking.  In our group we have a gay couple and it was one of the guys first experiences at one of the parades so it was really cool to experience it with the two of them.  I found it ironic that the gay pride parade landed on the 4^th of July, just about a week and a half after we legalized gay marriage, which has been legal in Spain since 2005.

A student with a queen
in the parade

One of the students proposing to a queen

We got back from the parade at about 10 oclock and went to dinner around the corner from the Colegio where we just ordered some random dishes that sounded good.  One of them called Callos a Madrileño, we asked the server what it was – stomach of a cow.  Even though it sounded crazy, we went for it.  It tasted almost like unbreaded calamari – rubber like and chewy.  Would not order it again but definitely glad I tried it.  Some other things we tried were Patata Bravas which is potatoes with this spicy sauce which was amazing.  We definitely picked the right spot to go to for dinner.  Now it’s off to Toledo and then the bullfight!