Charlene's Visit

At the very end of October, my friend Charlene came to visit me for about a week and a half. For those of you who do not know her, Charlene has been one of my best friends since high school - we met at Science & Math - and was also one of my house mates during my last two years of college. She is currently doing the same sort of English-teaching program in France, and was able to get a pretty cheap ticket to Madrid during the ridiculous two-week break which she had from work!

Visiting the Plaza Mayor

It was great having Charlene visit, for a number of reasons. Obviously, it was really nice to be with one of my very best friends - someone who truly knows me and has known me for a very long time. I have many friends here and a few very close ones, but there's just nothing like those relationships that have developed and grown over a long period of time.

It was also great showing her around the city. She works in a very small town in France, so she was already easily impressed by all of the big-city wonders of Madrid. I enjoyed seeing the city through her eyes for a bit, since my time living here has made me overlook a lot of Madrid's small charms and take its beauty for granted.

Watching the sunset from the Egyptian temple

We managed to see a lot in the short time she was here. Here are a smattering of our adventures:

Museo Cerralbo

This was a really neat house museum that I had never even been to before!

100 Montaditos

We went for drinks/tapas at the very cheap and very popular chain restaurant "100 Montaditos," or "100 Little Sandwiches." If you are a young person in Madrid, this is a more or less obligatory stop on the list of things to do in Spain!

Nun Treats

I took Charlene to a convent in Madrid that is right in the heart of the tourist district, yet incredibly well-hidden in a tiny plaza off a small cobblestone street. The nuns there make delicious sweets - mostly cookies - which you can buy. While the food is excellent, it's really the process of obtaining it that makes the experience. Beside the closed door is a buzzer like the ones you see on apartment buildings where you have to ring to be let in. Except instead of listing different apartment numbers, this one says, "Priests/Nuns." So we buzzed the nuns.

After much buzzing, when the (not particularly friendly) nuns answer the door in rapid-fire Spanish, you ask if you can come in to buy dulces, or sweets. They will let you in and, after walking through a rather confusing courtyard, you go down a narrow hallway where you find a turntable with a sort of menu next to it showing the different treats available. You tell them through the wall what you want and they send it around the turntable; then you put your money on and send it back around. The sweets are delicious and the experience is unforgettable!

Another wonderful thing about having Charlene here was that she got me to try a lot of new things and explore a lot of new places. This even applied to things as simple as going to a different grocery store, which I had never done simply out of habit and because it was a tiny bit farther away from my house. We tried new restaurants, went out dancing at new clubs and walked through parts of the city I had never visited. Leave it to Charlene, who is all about trying new things and having new experiences, to push me out of my boring routine and into new situations! I'm so glad she was able to come and visit, and especially that she got to stay for so long!