Watkins is in Madrid!

Nothing brings people together like a free outlet. Specifically, twenty-somethings hanging out at an airport. Today, I sat underneath a bank of payphones at JFK airport for a solid three hours with two other girls while we waited for our various international flights. It was a really nice way to start my trip; bonding with one girl going to Madrid and another going to London.

Our outlet! I love how it looks with the different converters :)

The flights were uneventful, I was luckily able to sleep almost the whole way here, and then stay up all day today, so I’m *almost* on Spain time already.

So excited to finally be in Spain!! (Pardon the shameless airport selfie, I have a feeling you'll be seeing a lot of them since I don't like giving my phone to strangers)

When I got here I wandered around the center of Madrid with my new roommate (super sweet, from Texas, we have a nearly freaky amount of stuff in common). We found the coolest shop! Five stories (not including off limits attic and basement) of really unique stuff wrapped around a gorgeous winding staircase. There was also a “Curiosity Shoppe” (“Are we curious?” “I think we absolutely are!”). Did not hold a candle to the Seattle one. In fact, it was all stuff from the states, which was absolutely hilarious to us. Think soda shoppe, sock hop music and all. There was also a Spanish Lush, which was just as addictive and delicious smelling as ours is.

Plaza

The street our hotel was on

The staircase!

view from atop the staricase shop

less than curious curiosity shop

We started to get hungry, so we found a tapas bar with free WiFi (SCORE!). We weren’t quite sure how the whole thing worked, so that was pretty hilarious to try and figure out. I ended up with this spinach soup stuff, a couscous salad (delicious!), espresso, and an iced summer wine (also magnificent).

Then we did more wandering, and ended the night with a group dinner at a pretty nice restaurant and a nighttime walk through the city. It looks sooo nice lit up! I don’t even care how touristy I look taking pictures of this place, the architecture is incredible.

Now that I’m in Madrid, things are finally starting to seem real. Occasionally I’ll have this crazy moment where I’ll just look around and think “OMG, I’m actually in Madrid”. It’s very surreal. (Speaking of surreal, who’s PSYCHED to go to el Museo del Prado tomorrow?! THIS GIRL.)