You know you're in Madrid when...

This is a little list, ongoing of course, that I have come up with that are different/confusing/interesting from the United States!

You know you're in Madrid when...

1) Pigeons fly extremely low. You better watch out otherwise they WILL be right on top of your head!

2) Everyone stands on line about 30 minutes before you can even start boarding the plane or people get up numerous stops before their actual stop on the Metro

3) Nothing is open on Sundays, no shopping, no restaurants, no grocery stores, NADA.

4) There is an abnormal amount of salt on all of your food, salad, vegetables, meat, pasta, etc... I had to tell Rosa I did not like salt that way she would stop putting it on my food. Every time I ate the salad with salt grains everywhere I wanted to choke & I felt my arteries clog ha.

5) There is NO late night food open. I don't understand! The amount of money these stores would make catering to all the late night partiers & people just out late would be crazyy! Only places I know of that are open late are Pa Pizza on Gran Via, Chocolate con churros by Sol, & the Chinos(Chinese people) who buy sandwiches from places and sell them cold on the streets to people who are desperate... it might have been to me one time :)

6) PDA is EVERYWHERE. The metros, parks, walking, everywhere. Except it is more obnoxious than I have ever seen before. I am not sure if it is because people's houses here are smaller so there is not room to hang out in the houses & so couples must go elsewhere to enjoy themselves or what but its a bit much sometimes.

7) Spanish people give you candy/ food when it is their birthday :)

8) Vale( the Spanish word for true, yes, okay, I understand, that makes sense,etc.. It has a ton of meanings) is used multiple times in a sentence and ends almost every sentence!

9) You think you understand how the street numbers work but actually you don't. They are very different from the United States. One side of the street is odd numbers and goes down in numbers while the other side of the street is even numbers but goes up in numbers. Example. You can be looking at 47 and be on the even side of the street, but since the street #'s go in the opposite direction, you will not find 48 right across the street from you like you think you would, you might have to walk  few blocks to get to you. ( im bad at explaining this boo)

10) Chupa Chups are everywhere. They are at every candy store, convience store, shops along the way on the street, movie theaters etc.. They are really good lollipops that we have in the States but are just not as popular as in Spain because they were actually invented here.

11) You think you understand that the right side will be the down escalator but then you go to the next escaloter and the down one is on the left side. I am so confused as to how you are EVER supposed to figure out which side goes up or down because I don't think their is a pattern. Its random I swear!

random other sides notes I've been meaning to write about:

- Rosa makes me eat as soon as I walk into the house from school. It is actually quite annoying becuse sometimes I need to go to the bathroom or I just want to rela x for 5 minutes and she will get offended if I don't eat right away. Also, I sometimes don't want to eat by myself so I will ask to wait 10 minutes for the girls next door to come by but she says no no no. Oh well, just cultural differences!

- I feel safe here for the most part which is a good feeling to have! Walking home alone at night is very lit up and I don't ever really feel too scared. This is a big deal for me, you all know I am BABY & a SCARDY CAT!

-Lacasitos are Spain's version of M&M's

- Rosa again, this one is sort of funny I guess. But she told me I will no longer get strawberries because I didn't eat all of mine the other day at lunch. They were expensive apparently & I only ate half of each one because I was stuffed. The son-in-law ate the rest of mine so Rosa wasn't offended anymore but she still told me that everyone else will get them except me. I told her " pero me gusta las frescas" but she wasn't having it haha.  THEN, Emily just asked me if I got strawberries at lunch yesterday, I ate separately because I was running late, & I said no. So I guess she was not kidding around lol.

BESOS!!!