As 6 a.m. rolled around, neither Matt nor I had slept much of the night. The highlight to my sleepless nights are the Modern Family reruns we watch in bed, the kitty cuddles, and intermittent messaging with our friends stateside. I think I will become closer than ever with people because there is something so nostalgic and comforting to talk with our friends back home. It’s only day 4 and we realize the importance of our friendships and loved ones. We finally fell fast asleep and were startled awake by a person entering our apartment. It takes 5 doors and many locks, mind you. So you can imagine the absolute shock, awe, and pure confusion we felt at 10 a.m. when the sweetest woman entered our apartment speaking the fastest Spanish. I quickly put some clothes on and hopped into the living room to see what the F%*k was happening. She could see I was startled awake and immediately explained who she was. Our housing is set up through the school I am attending. They contract with a cleaning company to have someone come visit the properties once weekly. Our day was Saturday at 10:15 a.m. she pointed out speaking much more slowly as she saw my absolute confusion. In the most abstract, broken Spanish, I expressed to her that we are jet lagged and are struggling with sleep and will not need our apartment cleaned this week. She was so sweet and thoughtful, she wished us sweet dreams and was on her way.
I laid back down trying to convince myself to go running in the park nearby… As I awoke again to our kitty (Fluff, Pelusa, Barundi…) take your pick of her nickname, meowing ferociously as if she were trying to wake us from the deepest sleep… We looked and realized we had slept until 12:15… Matt and I are really trying to challenge ourselves fiscally and see how much we can still preserve by enjoying Spain but also not going out as often. As it is Saturday, we decided to “treat ourselves” and get some coffee at a nearby cafe called, The Fix Cafe. We sat and enjoyed our coffees as we decided what to do with our day. 
The coffee was good yet quite bitter. There had been a fun little spot near our apartment that I wanted to check out. It was a Coffee and Tea shop called Lfont Tea Mountain.
The owner is the coolest person, he didn’t speak English so we spoke very simply in Spanish all about coffee and the best type of coffee for our French Press. We decided on this one and we are going to try it out for the first time tomorrow AM:
After we departed from the store, we decided to take a long walk through Madrid and go visit our permanent apartment which we will move into on April 1st in the The La Latina District of Madrid. We took the “scenic route” by sort of just guessing on directions and side streets. We cut through the Plaza Mayor. This place is where we had originally gone when we were in Madrid in 2017. It’s the best in the sunshine and there is lots of activity and bustling restaurants.
There are many entrances and exits that put you in different parts of Madrid. It is very easy to get “off course” while in the Plaza Mayor and we found ourselves completely on an adventure of not knowing where the hell we were. My stomach was full of coffee, nerves, and I needed a break. We eventually ended up at a cute little bar to have a cana and use the restroom. This place was called the El Clasico Madrid. This place was so warm and welcoming. We sat at a cute little table, people watched, had a few canas, and some water. The inside of the restaurant is gorgeous and their food smelled delicious.
After we finished our beers for 5 euro, we set off on the rest of our adventure. We finally found our way to the neighborhood we will be living in and were completely astounded with how amazing it is. There are restaurants and bars EVERYWHERE. It’s going to be quite the experience being able to live in the center of a bustling little spot.
After we finished up with that, we began to walk back to our neighborhood we are currently in. In order to do so, we walked through so many beautiful streets, parks, and found many different street performers. It is so exciting to see how much culture there is here.
Once we made our way back, we had a wonderful evening of eating soup, taking another long walk and discovering a cool bookstore called J&J Books and Coffee. We are trying to abstain from siesta time today and so we’ve been keeping as busy as possible. As soon as this blog post is wrapped up, we will be crawling into bed as it is well past the hour of exhaustion. I really am excited to get back on track with time. My body hurts right now! We’ve been trying to stay moderated with drinking and solely having one or two drinks during the day (weekends only) as we are already so dehydrated. Here are some pics from our evening adventure.
Love to you all,
Melanie and Matt
Be Bold with Buttonwillow 