The Vizzle

Lizzles Reunited!

I met my Lizzle at the airport on the evening of Tuesday the 15th. After some "Lizzle!!!!"'s and hugs, we dikdiked our way onto the metro and back to my house. We spent five hours (not quite...) peeling, slicing, and sizzling potatoes (during which I spilled burning oil all down my leg) before finally sitting down to feast on our homemade lizzlemade tortilla espanola. Delicious. After dinner we met up with some of my friends at a bar that was basically an American frat house basement that had been magically transported to Spain. We consumed our fair share of sangria, watched a pretty heated beer pong match, got hit on by every single male in the room, and had two roses purchased for us from our new friend Balil Habibi. Good times.

On Wednesday morning I left Lizzle to wander around my neighborhood while I went to my art history class. Thankfully the tiny lid didn't get lost and we successfully met up afterwards, ran to the grocery store and my favorite fruit stand and made our way to Retiro to picnic. We rented a rowboat, had a mini workout rowing ourselves to the middle of the pond (?) where we promptly dropped our oars and let the wind push us around while we feasted on whole wheat baguettes, perfect strawberries, and white wine juice boxes. Once our 45 minutes of boat time ended we exited the park on Paseo del Prado and stopped quickly in the botanical gardens before I dropped Lizzle off at the Reina Sofia and headed to my history class. After class I picked up Lizzle where I had dropped her and did a quick tour through the Thyssen museum before walking up to Plaza de Cibeles and then Sol. Tired from such a long day, we refueled with some coffee at Cafe Comercial (sadly no McDreamy in sight) and returned home for dinner. We met up with Jess at Manuela Cafe where we had glasses of wine and chocolate cake and played a couple rounds of Scattergories (don't worry Sorgz, it was nothing near the intensity of Scattasorgz). Highlights included Lizzle's use of "turd" and Jess's and my twin moment with "Billy Rae Cyrus." The perfect weather had by this point turned to rain so after a couple hours we dikdiked home and went to sleep.

showing off our muscles

the best smelling flowers in the world

I woke up early and left Lizzle to sleep in while I made another trip to the airport to pick up my Dad, Carolann, and Robbie. We all reunited at Cafe Comercial for breakfast (or a calamari sandwich if you're Lizzle) and then headed to Sol, Plaza Mayor, and walked by Palacio Real, where we paused for a few minutes so that the kids could play on the play structure while the adults took a break from walking (hint: there were 3 kids and 2 adults.) With almost perfect timing, we escaped the sudden rain as we ducked into San Gines for churros con chocolate. My family decided to give into their jet lag induced cravings for a nap and headed back to their hotel while Lizzle and I shopped for a bit on Gran Via. Lizzle and I parted ways for dinner (she went with a friend of Jason's and I ate with my familia) but met up later at Tele Pizza where my friends were shadily pregaming. For some reason Cerveceria Seven was closed to we headed down Fuencarral in search of another bar. Lizzle and I bought one euro cans of beer from some random man in the street and we all ended up in a bar near Tribunal. The bar was a bit dead so Lizzle and I walked south to Sol to go to Palacio which was sadly closed. Though the weather was yucky, we persevered and walked to O'Connel's and Dubliners and then to a small Tapas Cafe. After a few more attempts to find a bar we gave up and hailed a taxi home.

Lizzles during breakfast at Cafe Comercial


in Plaza Mayor

On Friday morning we met up with my family to have breakfast at their hotel and then toured Palacio Real. After jumping around the courtyard and walking through the palace we checked out the adjacent church and then headed to the top floor of Corte Ingles for lunch where there was an old man with hair that stuck straight up. It was amazing. We shopped with the fam for a bit and then returned to Manuela Cafe to play Scattergories and share a pitcher of sangria. Robbie came back to my apartment with me and Lizzle where we both tried on his new soccer uniform and watched some youtube vids before meeting up to go to a Moroccan restaurant where we had an amazing feast complete with pita, hummus, falafel, tabbouleh, and couscous. After dinner, we bid goodnight to my family and ventured out. We started at the cave bar, shared a very strong leche de pantera, and then met up with Stephanie and Melissa and went to a bar with very harsh lighting, very cheap drinks, and very crazy Spaniards. Feeling a little sleepy, we cabbed home, stayed up for a bit, before calling it a night.

me with the fam outside of Palacio

JooJooBee: best nickname ever

poopiepants

I had to wake up early on Saturday morning to reunite with my family for our road trip to the beach (!! next blog post !!) which unfortunately meant saying bye to Lizzle. I woke her up to give her a hug goodbye before cabbing it to my family's hotel and Lizzle woke a few hours later to catch her flight back to the Cope. My Lizzle reunion in Madrid was perfect, just like the form of a leaping dikdik midflight.