And I, I took the one less traveled by...: Day 2 in Madrid-¿Dónde estamos?

I've survived 2 days in Madrid but today was extra eventful! Today the ISA group did some sightseeing at the Museo del Prado, which is an art museum about a 5 minute walk from our hotel. They had work from the famous painters like Velásquez and Goya and had a number of sculptures too! It was interesting, and I had a spanish speaking tour guide to freshen up on my listening skills. After the Museo del Prado the whole group took a bus over to the Palacio Real, which is a palace in Madrid. It was soo cool! The security guards were REALLY strict about how long our tour guide could talk for and what not to touch but it didn't take away from the tour. It's amazing to see how elaborate the palace was and how different each of the rooms were decorated. One room was entirely covered in porcelain! Another astounding fact about the palace is there are over 2,600 rooms! When can I move in?! The palace also had a great view of mountains and the surrounding city. Once the palace tour was over we had free time to do whatever we wanted in the city, whether that was sightseeing, shopping, or even going to see a movie or a musical! Me and Ginny decided to do a little sightseeing and walked to the Plaza Mayor. The plaza is this huge open area that has a lot of shops and restaurants. We decided to get some lunch in the plaza and picked this little restaurant called Torres. We both ordered pollo asado con patatas fritas, which is grilled chicken and french fries. We washed the meal down with some orange fanta being that it is such a popular (and familiar) drink. I swear the fanta tastes 10 times better in Spain than it does in the States. After the meal Ginny ordered some café, or coffee, and I ordered some té, or tea. It warmed me up since it was a little chilly today (a high of 51 and lows in the 20s) with a little breeze throughout the day. We also saw some interesting Spaniards while people watching in the plaza. Some of those characters included someone dressed up in what looked like a puss in boots costume (reference to Shrek), an accordion player, a fat spiderman, a Spanish Elvis, and a mime. There wasn't a dull moment at lunch today! Afterwards we visited the Plaza del Sol and then decided to walk back to the hotel. We knew we were about 30 minutes walking distance from our hotel so we left the Plaza del Sol in enough time that we wouldn’t be walking back in the dark. Well, that walk turned into me and Ginny getting lost in Madrid. We had a map of the city with us but thought we were going in the right direction from different landmarks that we had seen along the way. After a quick glance at our map, we realized that our sense of direction had failed us and we couldn’t figure out which direction was the right way back to the hotel. Since it was getting later in the day, and we knew we wouldn’t make it back to the hotel while it was still light outside, we decided the best option was to take the metro…and what an experience that was. We missed 3 trains before we figured out which was the right one. Every train we got on was so crowded too so we must’ve hit prime time metro hours. We FINALLY made it back to the hotel before dark and were thankful that there had been no mental breakdowns along the way! Haha but so far today was my favorite day in Madrid. I loved going sightseeing and the quaint streets are so cute! Tonight we plan on just grabbing some dinner at a local tapas bar and then maybe going out for a drink afterwards. Sangria here we come! I can’t wait for our day trip to Toledo tomorrow because I’ve heard it’s beautiful! On Thursday we make our way to Sevilla by bus and I’m too excited to get there! I can’t wait to meet my host family and explore the city!