Jet lag is real

Hola from Spain! After traveling all night with only a few short naps on the plane, the first thing I wanted to do when we checked into our hotel was take a long and well deserved snooze before our first field trip in the afternoon. Unfortunately we arrived to the hotel at 8 AM and we were told our rooms would not be available until 3 PM. The hotel kindly opened up one room for us to lock our suitcases away in so that we would be free to roam around the city without lugging heavy suitcases around. My friends and I decided to find a well known market area we heard about on a map. It was about a twenty minute walk from the hotel so it was a perfect way to waste time until our rooms were ready. The market was HUGE! They sold everything from keychains, to hand painted plates, to clothes, to straw hats. It was a fun distraction to the jetlag that was definitely starting to kick in. A six hour time difference is no joke.

At this point I started to realize how badly my group stood out. I can tell people are talking about us because I can hear them say "americanos" when they walk by us and not in a very nice tone. However, overall everyone we've had to talk to has been so nice, patient, and helpful. We headed back to the hotel and I grabbed a slice of pizza from a pizzaria outside the hotel. I would've taken a picture of my first official meal in Spain but unfortunately my tummy spoke before my brain. We checked into our rooms and took a short hour nap before getting ready for our field trip. We had a bus tour of the city of Madrid. The city is beautiful and definitely needs more than one tour in order to take everything in. I was able to snap some pictures of different buildings, sculptures, and cathedrals out the bus window.

 Bull Fighting Stadium

 Madrid Soccer Stadium

 Leaning Towers

The Puerta de Alcalá

 Gate to the city of Madrid"

Cathedral in Spain

And right about this time.....the jetlag hit me real hard. I'm a naturally very tired person but this was just absolute exhaustion. After the bus tour, we walked (more like zombie walked) to a little restaurant on small cobblestone roads that were adorable!!!! I felt like I was in the Lizzy McGuire movie when she travels to Europe and she rides the motorcycles on the cobblestone paths because that is exactly what Spain looks like! I now realize while everyone in Spain is so skinny! Walking this much everywhere can be a serious work out. I'm embarrassed to say I'm 100% positive I will be sore tomorrow.

We ended the night at the restaurant for an unlimited tapas and sangria dinner! It was delicious of course (but man was that sangria yummy). From what I could tell, tapas are just small dishes kind of like appetizers in the US. We had ham and cheese as seen in the picture below, fried calamari, a spanish omelette called tortilla espanola, something that resembled mozzarella sticks, salad, and bread.

After dinner I was basically skipping back to the hotel to take a shower, write the new blog post, and now crawl into bed. Excited for a new day tomorrow after actually getting a full nights rest! Almost equally as excited to get rid of this jet lag.