Visit with Megan!!

Hello everyone! I hope that you all had absolutely fantastic weekends and are not drowning in the Midwest (what exactly is going on over there?? All I keep hearing is rain, rain, rain...)

This past weekend, my sister (Megan) came to visit me. She's going to be a teacher's assistant in Madrid this year (October through June), and she just got in on Thursday, so she decided to visit. On Friday, I introduced her to my senora and family and then we just kind of hung out, walked around the Albaicin and Sacromonte a bit. While we were eating dinner, though, these two guys randomly decided to sit down at our table and started talking to us. Neither of us remember the guy who was sitting's name because we were horribly distracted by his crooked and plaque-infested teeth. It waas just really random that they sat down because we didn't do or say anything to make them come over. Megan also found out on Friday that her school is going to help her find housing so she decided to stay an extra night in Granada (which was really nice).

Saturday, Megan and I checked out the Mercado de San Augustin in search of breakfast (like fruit or something). I was thinking it was going to be like a giant supermarket except with only fresh stuff (like the bakery, the meat/fish market, and the fruit/vegetable section). It was basically this warehouse with ALL fresh meat, so we decided against getting anything. We also went to the Alhambra this day, which was a lot of fun and still really pretty. We just got the garden tour (because the regular tour was already sold out), and I was worried it was going to be lame, but it was almost the same (except we couldn't go into the Palacio Nazaries) but it was 13 euro for the regular tour and 7 euro for the garden tour, so I think we got a pretty good deal. AND it took five hours, so I don't think we could have gone for much longer.

On Sunday we went to the Parque de las Ciencias and it was SO COOL. It was this huge campus of a bunch of different interactive science-y stuff and it was spread out over a whole bunch of buildings (some of it was inside, some of it was outside). It was just really, really cool, like there was a special exhibit on venemous creatures and another on the Antarctic, and a butterfly house, and lots of interactive mechanics/physics-type stuff. After lunch, we went to the Parque de Federico Garcia Lorca, and I liked that a lot too. We found this bunch of kittens, so we played with them for a while, and then found this Spanish playground. They had this funky see saw, which was basically an upside-down curve with a seat on each end and the spring in the middle (on the highest part of the curve), so we decided to try it. Let me tell you - it was NOT a safe piece of playground equipment. I felt like I was going to fall off the entire time and I went really high. For dinner, we got doner kebaps, and I LOVED IT! IT was super big, super yummy, and not expensive at all, so I'm definitely going to go back there.

Monday we just kind of hung out. It was really hard to say goodbye though, for both of us I think. For her, she was going back to Madrid, to this place where she didn't know anyone and didn't ahve anywhere to live or anyone to hang out with or anythign to do during the day, which are all really scary adn overwhelming things. For me, it was kind of like I'd finallly come to grips with being in this weird place with all these weird people and then someone familiar shows up and I felt so much more comfortable and when she left, it was like I was coming to Spain all over again and losing that familiar feeling. I was also really upset because I know that she had to go back to Madrid to be by herself and I don't want her to feel lonely. So it was really hard. But hopefully we'll get to see each other between my bus and flight to Rome for Semana Blanca and then definitely November 6-9 (because I want to visit Madrid) and then hopefully right before I leave.

All in all, though, it was a really good weekend and it was really good to see her.