"Did that Spanish man just call me Lebron James?"

Day 32
Last Saturday and the beginning of our last weekend. On Saturday morning we took our finals and finished up our classes in Spain. They went pretty well so we had the rest of the day to relish in the fact that we were finished - some of us finished with Spanish classes for good. After lunch, I headed to Sol, the center of Madrid, to explore with one of my friends and buy about a million souvenirs. We meandered over to the Plaza Mayor, the beautiful, large plaza that we saw on our walking tour nearly thirty days ago (woah). The Plaza Mayor was very tranquil, especially because we were there mid-afternoon on a Saturday when most Spaniards are taking it easy, usually with a café con leche. Near the plaza is the world's oldest restaurant : El Botin. Unfortunately we didn't get the chance to eat there because you have to make reservations. But we saw the menu so maybe that counts for something? After walking around this older part of town, we found an interesting little market with many delicious looking sweets; I had to restrain myself from buying anything else. By this time it was after seven so we decided to head home to start packing (nope, didn't do that) and eat dinner before we went out for the night. We decided that for our last real night in Spain - I have to get up at 6:00 AM on Monday so I will be hitting the hay early on Sunday - we would try out a bar that we heard was really cool. The bar is called El Chapandaz and is modeled after a cave: faux stalactites hang from the ceiling and when a song everybody loves comes on, they turn on the mist. It was pretty amazing! Also, when you order the house special, some secret ingredient in the drink is poured from one of the stalactites on the ceiling. Oh, to explain the title of this post, some friendly Spaniards were talking to us in the bar and one noticed that I was very tall so he said I was like Lebron James. He then said I was very pretty but that I was serious and bored...haha, not exactly how I would describe myself! But the bar was definitely unique and a great way to celebrate finishing finals and surviving for a month in a foreign country. But now I actually do have to get back to packing. Boo.

Carrie