Madrid Take Two with Steve and Fabio

            On Wednesday March 27th we flew from Florence into Madrid and were at our hostel by about 1:30 pm.  We then had time to get settled and shower quickly before we met up with FABIOOOO.  Fabio, Steve, and I became really close friends last year while Fabio was working on his master’s at UConn.  He’s from Milan, Italy but has currently just begun working on his second master’s in Madrid so we met up with him there.  We met in Plaza Espana and from there we went to the Museo de Jamon.

            Museo de Jamon is a chain in Madrid that serves all authentic Spanish rations and tapas, and ham comes with pretty much every meal.  The food and beers are great and cheap so I highly recommend it.  As we were catching up when an Australian named Jasper approached us because he heard us speaking English and asked if he could hang.  We weren’t too sure about him at first but he ended up being okay and hung out with us the rest of the afternoon.  For the rest of the afternoon we explored Retiro Park.  This park is ginormous and includes many statues, fountains, a lake, rose garden, a crystal house, and more.  A highlight was Steve and Fabio climbing on top of a lion statue to get a picture riding it, only to be kicked off by park cops after I snapped the pic.  Way to go Ranger Steve ;) (Steve is a law Enforcement ranger for the National Parks Service for those who don’t know).  We then broke off for a few hours for Steve to finish his group project that was due the next morning and to get ready for going out all together (minus Jasper) at night. 

            At night we met up with Fabio and a bunch of his friends at a tapas bar called El Tigre.  There you get a huge cup of beer or sangria for 6 euros and then they keep bringing out heaping plates of classic tapas as long as your there and finishing the plates, no matter if you order more drinks or not.  We had a ton of fun getting to know his friends there.  There were Italians, Spaniards, Americans, and a guy from England at the table so at times we had three languages going at once.  Pretty cool.  From El Tigre we went to a bar that’s known for its sangria we split a few jugs.  We were definitely the fun table that everyone wanted to join that night.

            Saying bye to Fabio was really hard that night/morning because we don’t know when we’re going to see him next.  At least the last time I said goodbye to him I knew I would eventually see him while I was abroad.  It was also very hard saying bye to Steve, as we don’t know when we’ll see each other next.  Thankfully, it looks like we’ll be working on the Cape together this summer, so we’ll be back together in June J After saying goodbye Thursday morning, he flew back to the States and I bussed back to Madrid for Semana Santa.