Gallivanting around Old Madrid

Today was a beautiful day. Blue skies and in the 40's and I am exhausted. I left my residencia at 9:45 to go to the ISA office and didn't get back until 5:30. I took the metro to the ISA office and didn't have any problems at all. It's really quite easy to figure out as long as you know where you want to go and you make sure the train you're about to get on is traveling in the direction you want to go (I almost got on the train going in the opposite direction but caught my mistake in time). The ISA people are really nice and are working hard to get my luggage back for me--yeah, it's still not here yet. After visiting the office, I bought a few things to wear, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money on clothes because I have so many that I packed. The shopping near the Puerta del Sol is pretty fabulous though and right now it is especially great because of the "rebajas," which are huge sales going on through January. It was so crowded in every store I went in and clothes were strewn about everywhere. Oh! before I went shopping I stopped in this little cafe-type-place to get chocolate con churros. Well, they didn't have the churros and I was disappointed, so I had some other sort of breakfast pastry instead and the chocolate. It was really good, but the hot chocolate was so thick. It kept me full for hours.

After shopping a bit I decided to wander up the Calle Mayor. I re-visited the Plaza Mayor (which was really empty today compared to yesterday--you can see my video of it below) and then I walked and walked until I stumbled upon the Palacio Real, which was immense. I didn't tour it though because the admission was 10 euros, but if I wait until I get my student i.d. next week it will only be 3.50 euro. Then I wandered through the Plaza del Oriente and back down the Calle Mayor. I went to a really huge music/movies/video games store and had lunch at a place called Rodillas. I got a bocadillo (sandwich) and diet coke for 5.55 euro. The bocadillo was really filling and it was called bacon with cheese, but the bacon was more like a cross between ham and canadian bacon and it had this really good spread on it. I was really excited because as I was walking home today I found a Rodillas near my residencia.

Speaking of walking home, I managed not to get lost all day until walking from the metro station to my residencia. I went up one street too far after leaving the metro station (and it never crossed with the street that I live on) and was so confused for about 15 mintues until I finally stepped into a pharmacy to consult a map.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do tomorrow yet. I had planned on going to the Prado and Reina Sofia art museums, but the ISA directors told me to "be patient" and wait until next week after I get my student ID card so I can get a discount on admission. They suggested that I go to the Templo de Debod or the Parque del Retirio (as one ISA guy said, the park is "muy muy gratis").

Check out all of the pictures I took today by visiting this link (even if you don't have Facebook you should be able to see the pictures if I set up everything correctly--if the link doesn't work let me know). And because I'm an English major I feel the need to say that all of the information in the captions is from my guide book, my friend, or ISA information...and maybe Wikipedia hahaha:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2123658&l=32e96&id=71208608