Traveling in general you meet people who are just like you, but grew up on the other side of the planet.

You meet people you love but are nothing like you.
You meet people that give you a cringe deep in your spine, often because they remind you the things you hate about yourself.

I think everything ever written about going abroad mentions something about all the great people you meet, and I don’t want to add another mindless post saying the same thing as a bajillion other girls who spent six months in Europe.

So I’m literally going to tell you who I met abroad:

Oda (codename: Norge; Norweigan Princess)
Before moving to Spain, I decided I wasn’t going to make friends, I didn’t have time for that! I had museums to visit until the security guards recognized me and direct object pronouns to figure out how to use (FINALLY).
Then the second day of class I get paired up with the freaking cool looking Norwegian girl and there was no looking back. I thought she was probably too good for a silly American. I was wrong.
A lot of pints of sangria, school nights spent dancing until 4 am, and afternoons studying in the basement at the chillest bar in all of Malasaña, I am so glad Adrián (a grammar professor) paired us up! She’s one of the coolest humans I know, and I look forward to years of being jealous that I don’t live in Norway.

Oda to the left, Lorena to the right

Lauren (codename: Lorena)
Lorena is from Boston, now works for a swanky travel company based out of London, and has a black kitty named Saul. She’s cool.
Lorena’s first major role in my life in Madrid involved dragging my useless body into a taxi after sitting on a cobble stone street with me (its an involved story I’ll probably leave off this blog for the time being *blushes*).
Lorena was my partner when a British guy dragged us to a bull fight and witnessed me almost get into a fight with a French guy over a seat (another future story for the blog). Lorena new the shady bars in Lavapies where you could get cheap buckets of Spanish beer, and always had the hookup on a restaurant I’d never been to.
Lorena  was happy, and loud, and an instigator after my own heart.

Nikki (bartender from Jersey who you can’t steal from)
Nikki had a backpack and a purse that were lined with wire, so you couldn’t slash through them and steal their contents. Nikki was not playing around. Having grown up using the best metro system in the US– the New York subway– she was used to being cautious on public transportation. Nikki was as loud, passionate, and encouraging of new things as I. She was perhaps (read: definitely) more eager to do something wild as I was. Nikki was the only person in my study abroad program I got super close to, and the only person in it my age, as well. She was such a comfort to have, and such a vivid, alive person to have the joy of sharing life with for a semester.
She’s also a top notch person to have drunk conversations with, which I’m sure her extensive bar-tending background plays into nicely. One night in something posing as an Irish pub, but really just a trap for Spanish guys to take home unsuspecting American girls (or a great place for cheap cheap cidre for the savvy), she and I had an under the influence conversation about what we liked in our significant others that was remarkably bonding.

Trinh, left / Nikki, right– both q drunk

Trinh (Spanish edition)
The September before I left for Spain I got a text message from a childhood best friend “Hey what are you doing the weekend of the 29th?” I had no plans, and she was going to be in town. Why? Because she was leaving for Spain two days later.
OH, you know, BY THE WAY, I’ll be in Spain in January.
I probably would have died in Spain without her.
That’s only a little bit of a hyperbole.
Also, the kind soul who introduced me to Don Simon 3€ bottled sangria. The kind soul who met me at the airport and helped me lug my HUGE suitcases across a city. The kind soul who let me stay with her the first few days and the last few days in my time in Madrid.
Trinh and I have been friends our whole lives (since we were 7), and seeing her in Spain, all free and fun, was amazing. My glee that we got to experience each other abroad is unspeakable.

Sara (codename: The Italian)
Trinh’s roommate, and “the love of [her] life.”
I was welcomed into Trinh’s flat as much by Sara as I was by Trinh, and in time, my presence there was as expected by Sara as it was by Trinh. She came to me with questions about English slang as eagerly as she did Trinh (only less so, because OBVZ I didn’t live with her). Sara and Trinh had a third roommate, another Italian named Roberta, who was also very sweet, but had a harder time communicating, but because of Sara was such a pleasant part of our friend group. Sara has the smoothest, grooviest dance moves, the cool casualness of a European, and was fun to slowly and surely expose to all kinds of liberal American views 😉

forgive the orientation of this photo, but here is the crew +

Naturbier: German beer brewery in Madrid

This joint operates as a bar, serving its own product.

I’m not a beer drinker by nature and I, without having to think about it, sipped down two beers here.
I had an amber and a ruby ale. They were both much better than I think beer is generally, much less cloying on the tongue, perhaps even “fresh.” The ruby was especially good and the most beautiful colour.

Two friends who were there with me were also not big beer fans, and they, too, enjoyed the beer here just fine.
The German friend who showed us this place, Felix, was very pleased with it over all, and I’m sure a wee slice of home was as comforting to him as the Mexican food places were to the other Texan and I.

We sat it what I’ll describe as the basement (we had to go down stairs, it fits). We were out in a little room off to one side, and that night we were alone, even though upstairs it was wild packed. It was unusual to be alone in a room anywhere, so the group of international study abroad students reveled in it.

My amigos Alex and Marc ordered German appetizers, so really just one huge piece of sausage that was so odd to get served on a plate by itself that I don’t even remember what else it was we got. I can’t even remember what it tasted like I was so taken aback by it as it was served!

They serve tapas here, but why would you come to a German beer bar to have Spanish food, when you could wander a little further up the street and get something from a place meant for Spanish food. Don’t be an idiot.
Or an annoying tourist, that’s worse.

Alpargatas, known more broadly as espadrilles, which is the French word for them. This place ^^ sells the best.

Espadrilles history can be traced back to Catalunya (the traditional spelling of the region). This region is so generally thought of as the region of Spain that holds Barcelona, but historically the cultural area of Catalunya extends into part of France. This is where the shoe has its old, old origins. Eventually the shoe’s easy fabrication and simple style wandered down into the main bodies of both Spain and France, for the French to call espadrilles and the Spanish to call alpargatas.

The oldest maker of alpargatas in Spain is Casa de Hernanz, which has been consistenetly open since some time in the 1800s. This shop has not closed in the face of two new centuries, a dictator, the rise of drug use and crime in the neighbourhood its in. It’s impressive. Now with the revitalization of La Latina, above mentioned neighbourhood, this store is very, very popular again.

Go on a weekday as close to their opening time as possible.
If you wait until a Friday in the afternoon the line will be a block long.

This is after I’d already waited an hour and a half.

SO many styles, in SO many colors.
They have everything in the world of espadrilles from very traditional Spanish regional styles, all the way to something you’d have to pay $50 for at the Gap. Things a Spanish grandpa would wear, and things your hip big sister back home wears.

I have a black pair, that laces around the ankle: one of the eldest and most traditional styles of this shoe.
Here is a blurry photo, with them in it: