Ok here I am getting my hair cut. This lady is a friend of Alexandra's and she is also from Romania. Medias, in fact. So we had a good time talking and laughing. 
Here are some more pictures with flowers. This is in Quintanar when Alexandra, my friend, lives. It was a nice day and we were just walking around a little.
Ok these pictures aren't really in order, but this will have to be good enough. This is on calle mayor. I just saw this statue and yeah..you can see :) Its no fun to just take a picture next to it. 
Street Signs..they are all on the buildings. I think when i go home it will be hard to get used to seeing them on a little post. I will keep looking on the buildings :)
This is just a cathedral we passed on the way to Plaza Espana
And these are some ancient ruins of a cathedral. I was checking them out with my friend there. He didn't really talk to me though. He seemed very interested in those ruins.
This is the cathedral that is across from the Royal Palace. It is named after the one that is in ruins now. We went inside and i have some pictures of that but i can't show you everything or you won't have a reason to see me when i get home. :)
Here are some more random Madrid pictures. You all are going to know Madrid as well as me...well probably not. ;) This is on calle Velazquez. At the end of this street is Retiro Park...which is where I was heading on this particular day. I looked across the street and boom there was and Iberia building. I am assuming its the HQ because its a spanish airline and wea re in the capital. My professor is a consultant for Iberia so I wonder if this is where he works. Its pretty close to my school.
This is a monument near the Prado musuem which is also in the same general area as Retiro. This monument has an eternal flame burning for the people who died in a war. I would translate the plaque but I can't see it very good in this picture.
This is a picture from inside the center of Sol. This is probably my favorite place in Madrid. You can go here on the weekends and the whole place is full of people. It is also where all the stores are and its just a nice place to walk. :)
Here I am standing on Kilometer 0, which is the exact middle of Spain. Oooo...I have walked past that a million times but I never took a picture there. So now I finally did :)
This is in Plaza Mayor. Its like Main Square in englis. There are restaurants and stores and it used to be where the royalty lived and could watch bull fights and stuff. Now its just for normal people but I'm sure its really expensive to have an apt looking down on Plaza Mayor. I ate dinner with Ken and Deanna and Alcaro here in February. 
This is one of the entrances to Retiro park. We walked through and sat and watched the boats on the pond. They were doing sound checks for the holiday on thursday. I was there on tuesday. 
Some nice flowers. Last time I was in Retiro there were no flowers. Now there are a lot. :)
Crossing the street on the way to Retiro. Nice hair, I know
The pond and boats. 
And here is my little friend Mickey. And look! He is even wearing an American flag costume! How special. Alvaro wanted me to take a picture with mickey but I told him I have pictures with the real mickey in Disney World...I don't need one with a fake spanish mickey. :) Anyways...He was calling people to take a picture with him. I didn't know mickey spoke spanish. 
Well some people have expressed a desire to see more madrileno things...so here you go. This is me and the the girls I live with one night that we went out to eat and walked around and got ice cream. I was so full after that night I didn't think it was possible to ever eat again. :) but then I had another huge meal the next night with them in our apartment. So as you can see things are going better. Maybe its me that has opened up more, but whatever it is we did have a good time. This picture was in Sol...if you remember pictures from there. 
These are some metro pictures...this is where you go in and out and this is my station...Plaza de Espana. We usually go in a different entrance though because this one is for the yellow line (3) and we take the blue line for most things. This station has 3 lines crossing in it which is nice because we can pretty much connect to anything we want quickly. 
Here is a map for line 3. I use this line to go to Sol and Callao mostly and Legazpi connects us to the grey line to get to the bus station. :) aren't you all so interested?
Waiting for the train to come...the other one was there as you can see. This line has nice trains because its newer. 
Here is the grey line, but you can't see ti so well because its kind of far away, sorry. I take this one to get to Mendez Alvaro, where the bus station is, and Conde de Casal where we meet for class trips. 
This is my street. I live inder the blue hostal sign and down one door. Then 4 flights up the building. I can say for sure that I will never miss those stairs. 
This is a far away view of Plaza de Espana, where I live. 
I like this building a lot because its so fun to take pictures of and its so huge. I live just on the other side of it and down the street a little. I can see it from my street..obviously. 
This is a gas station. Tiny, I know. Repsol is a spanish oil company. 
Finally, here I am in a little plaza on Calle de la Princesa..that is near our apartment. Gran Via turns into this street just past Plaza de Espana. We went to the restaurant over my left shoulder...Its the red banner. It was called Vips and its like an applebees. I like it because you can get american like food. Ok well I have some more pictures that I will post soon of more things in madrid. I have to go to bed now because I will have a busy weekend starting tomorrow so I will post when I can. Friday is a holiday...its Madrid's saint day..el dia de San Isidro...so i don't have school thursday or friday. Ok well I hope you enjoy these and there are more to come!
Ok these pictures are from friday morning. There was a reenactment of the spanish revolution from the french. I'm not sure who the but silver guy is but I think he is Napoleon's brother.
This is a giant dancing lady wearing maja style clothes from the revolution era. 
This is the live band that was playing for the dancers and the maja lady. 
Here I am by an important government building...we were walking to the royal palace to see a giant puzzle. 
This is right next to the palace and we just stopped to take a picture and get away from all the crowds for a minute. 
This is the changing of the guards at the palace. 
Here is the giant puzzle. It is a copy of one of Goya's paintings...Goya is a very famous spanish painter. 
This is next to the palace and you can see the royal cathedral on the left. 
In front of the palace there are a lot of random statues of people...I am sure if I was spanish I would know all these people but I'm not so I just picked on and took a picture by it. :) 
This was on the metro on the way to the show on friday night. We stopped at starbucks on the way and this is how they spelled my name...Lishia...i'm not sure how they got that but I thought it was funny :)
These are the girls we met up with to watch the show. Its Alycia on the left and then Jana and me and Wendy. We had a really good time and the show was really interesting. We all agreed that it pretty much beat any independence day show we have seen in the US. 
This is Banco de Espana, or the bank of spain. Its just the front..it actually goes down the whole block. 
Sorry that these pictures are kind of blurry but its hard to get them clear when its dark. This is a giant wheel that people are inside of and making it turn.
Here is a shot of some fireworks...I kind of missed the best part but I have it on video too, which is better.
This was the part when they were narrating how the French wanted to take over Spain and that Napoleon's brother was pretending to be a friend to Spain, when he really had ulterior motives. If you look, you can see a guy hanging from the crane arm...he was a soldier or something. 
This was kind of strange...those are all people on those two things. It was to depict when there was like a massacre of people by the French and they shot off fireworks and then all the people on those things pretended to be dead. It was kind of morbid.
This is a shot of behind me...you can see the metropolis building in the middle. This street is Alcala and when you get to the metropolis building you can go right or left. If you go left, it stays Alcala and it runs into Puerta del Sol, which is a really famous part of madrid and where all the shopping is. If you turn left it is Gran Via, which is also a very famous street for shopping and it is the one that I life just off of.
Here is a closer view of the Metropolis with me. The crowd moved out really fast so we were able to take a few pictures on the way out. 
