Hey everyone! I hope your weekend was as nice as mine was!! I just got back to school after my Madrid extravaganza. I told my family I wouldn't be home for lunch (which is right now) and it is culturally rude to just show up, so I had to come to school to kill a little time....Boy do I miss just popping into my parents house to see what’s for lunch/dinner!!! They would NEVER tell me I can't eat if I didn't let them know I was coming :)

This weekend was a whirlwind! I got to Madrid at about 11:00 yesterday morning. My bus to take me to the bus station was LATE so I had to sprint from the bus stop, with my backpack and my purse, to buy my ticket and catch the 10:00 bus to Madrid. Can you picture that?!? All I kept thinking was, BOY DO I HOPE NO ONE I KNOW SEES ME RIGHT NOW!!! I was the last person to get on the bus!! LUCKY ME!!! The bus ride was REALLY boring alone!! The guy sitting in the across the aisle from me was rolling his cigarettes so that was pretty interesting to see....And I am just assuming they were cigarettes!!! Once I got to Madrid I had a 45 minute metro ride to the hostel...We all know how much I love the metro systems! I didn't get lost so that was exciting!

The hostel was pretty nice. When I got there, I called Maureen to see what everyone was up to. They (Maureen, Shannon, Natalie, and Christine) had gone out the night before and didn't get back home until 6:00am so they were all VERY tired!! Once everyone got up and going we headed to the Museum of Natural Sciences. It was filled with a lot of "stuffed" animals, rocks, minerals, bones, etc. It was the typical science museum. The most interesting part of it was when I was trying to buy my ticket the lady wouldn't give me my student discount. When we come here, the school gives us a "carnet joven" or student card to get discounts all over Spain. You can use this card until you are 25. Apparently at this particular museum you need your actual school student ID card to VERIFY you are actually a student....Of course I didn't bring my card to Spain with me because I never though it was going to be needed!! The 4 other girls all had their student passes and they were like hey she is with us...she is a student...and the NOT VERY NICE SPANISH LADY was a bit CRABBY and didn't let me....so I ended up paying a few dollars more to get the regular fee ticket...The funny part of the story is that NO ONE EVEN LOOKED TO SEE IF WE HAD TICKETS THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE MUSEUM!!! This is one example of how dysfunctional Spain is!

After the museum we went to eat at Museo de Jamon (Ham Museum). They had a really good lunch special…it was called the Piknik (picnic). You got a sandwich, apple, and water for 2 Euros!! WHAT A STEAL!! Then we found some shade to sit in while we ate because it was SOOOOOO hot in Madrid this weekend!! 

After lunch we went home to change into shorts and t-shirts, but of course the only pants I brought were black jeggings...So here I am walking around Madrid in my black jeggins, black boots, and a white tee....HA HA HA!!! Everyone, but Christine, went to the Reina Sofia Museum. This is a museum of modern art. It was free for students and this time I got in without a doubt :) We were only here for a little while, before we had to head home to change for dinner and the concert!!

We went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. It was nice to have an American meal again!! I pulled a Brock and got chicken tenders. I only say this because Brock ONLY orders chicken tenders when we go out somewhere...We used to tell him he was going to turn into a chicken!! Dinner was AMAZING!!! There was only one slight issue during dinner. All of the girls were talking about their ticket and I noticed their ticket looked a lot different than mine. I just had a printed out piece of paper and they got ACTUAL tickets! So I read my ticket (of course it is in Spanish) and it says something to the effect of....YOU NEED TO PICK YOUR TICKET UP FROM PARTICIPATING KIOSKS UP TO 72 HOURS BEFORE THE SHOW...Well of course I didn't see that before I got to Madrid...so here I sat all dinner thinking I wasn't going to get into the concert. 

Then we walked 20 minutes to get to the Palacio de Deportes (Sports Palace) where the concert was being held...Luckily my ticket problem all worked out and it was waiting there for me at Will Call!!! When we walked in, we had no idea who the opening band was!! The stadium seats were half empty and the floor was sparse!! We had tickets to stand on the floor in front of the stage.

The crowd was EXTREMELY DIVERSE! We were all wondering who would attend a Taylor Swift concert in Madrid....Well in case you were wondering the same thing....There were little girls about 8-12 years old, parents, adult men in business suits and business attire, teenagers, a kid in a slipknot t-shirt.....just a bunch of random people!!! I also forgot to mention that Maureen bought these RIDICULOUS metallic cowboy hats for the concert....I will hopefully put a picture up online (pending on how I look in it!!). I think out of the couple thousand people there, we only saw about 3 other people wearing cowboy hats! We definitely weren't in the States anymore!!

While we were standing in the back of the stadium, I noticed a mini stage set up with stairs to go up to it. So I proceed to tell the girls that HEY I THINK TAYLOR IS GOING TO BE PLAYING A SONG UP THERE...WE SHOULD STAND OVER THERE TO WAIT...Of course that didn't go over too well...So I was thinking...okay if she really is going to play over there I am going to be VERY upset!! Then I saw them testing the lights on the stage...so I KNEW she was going to play over there....

The concert started right on time at 9:30. She was AMAZING!! I have heard from a bunch of people that she isn't any good live, but I thought she was AWESOME (and I am a tough critic!!!) She sang songs from her latest album and her previous album. Then all of a sudden she went off stage and the lights got darker, but the band kept playing and I go OK WE ARE MOVING TO THAT STAGE RIGHT NOW SHE IS GOING TO COME WHEN EVERYONE IS LOOKING AT THE MAIN STAGE AND THEY WILL GET HER THROUGH THE CROWD THEN...So they decided to follow me and wait by the mini stage. Taylor reappeared on the big stage to sing Speak Now and then she proceeded into the crowd with a bunch of body guards surrounding her....So being the tiny person I am...I PUSH AND SHOVE MY WAY TO THE FRONT OF THE MINI STAGE!! You guys would be so proud of me :) She was literally ten feet away from us!!! Natalie goes, “Brooke I’m not sure if you realize, but there isn’t anyone standing between you and Taylor right now.” It was really cool!! She sang four songs up on the mini stage before she headed back to the main one...I thought I was going to die when she left the mini stage because everyone and their brothers were pushing me from behind, but there were ropes and security guards in front of me so I had no place to go...I did get some awesome pictures of her up on that stage though!!! I feel kind of bad because a girl standing next to me was jumping and being really annoying so I "accidently" gave her an elbow to the stomach :) MY BAD!!!

I loved the concert!!! It was one of the best things I have been to on this trip!! If anyone is wondering if she sang in Spanish or English, like you Carli, she sang in English, but she did manage to get a few sentences of Spanish out to the crowd!! I will definitely be posting pictures up online when I get home!! They should be up by your bedtime tonight!!! After the concert we went back to the hostel and everyone crashed!!

I only slept for about 2 hours because it was SOOOOOOOO noisy outside....It sounded like a circus was going on 3 feet from my room!!! Then my lovely roommate from South Korea decided to get up, bang around, take a shower, and turn on the lights.....I'm not sure if that is acceptable in Korea, but I thought it was RUDE! So I got up 2 hours before I was supposed to, showered, ate breakfast, and played on my iPod for a bit...Thank goodness I had my iPod to keep me entertained!!! When the 4 other girls got up they decided they wanted to go to mass.....Let's get one thing clear, I am not exactly the person who attends church every Sunday....to say the least...

So here I am, not knowing ANYTHING about the things to do and things not to do of church... I get confused with church in America, much less church in a different language. If I offend anyone with any of the following comments I apologize!! I can definitely say I got my work out today. I was up and down and kneeling and up and down about  2395791230 times during mass....Then you do this lunge things in and out of the pews so that took care of my lunges for the day too :) I only messed up one time...I sat when I was supposed to kneel, but no major issue!! I thought the priest was going to cough up his lung during his "speech". All he kept doing was coughing and hacking!!! HA HA HA!! I thought his purple "robe" was pretty sweet though :) 

That about sums up the happenings of the Madrid weekend! Now I am just wasting time at school before it is safe to go back home when my family is finished eating!! I plan on uploading the pictures from this weekend right away!! So stay tuned for those :)

I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their weekend!! I hope the weather is as nice there as it is here :)

¡Muchos besos y abrazos de España!

B