15th of July
Marta and I get up really late (12.45) even though we set the alarm at 10.30.
We have lunch at her place where her dad cooked a really nice three course menu. (Mixed vegetables; fish and filled eggs; and for dessert a melon ring filled with joghurt and biscuits with a cherry-red wine sauce)
 After lunch we take the train to Madrid where we are meeting Edu and Ricci. They live out the Spanish attitude and are not there when we arrive.
We are waiting for them on a big square filled with people and policemen. I’ve never seen so many policemen in one place withouth anything special happening. I know they are there for your safety but if anything they make you feel unsafe.
After half an hour waiting Marta decides that she needs to withdraw money and we go to the closest bank. While queuing a policeman comes over and explains Marta in Spanish that there is a group of people running around that are robbing people and that they were quite aggressive. They tend to be close to the bank we are standing at and if they come we shouldn’t hesitate to hit them.
„Action – Reaction“ he keeps saying and looks very serious.
He also adds that if we come to the police station with their teeth in our hands we would get a price.

Marta noices that I’m on my way to freaking out so she tries to calm me down by saying this has never happened to her before, Madrid is not that dangerous and that she’s only been attacked about three times before. The last time was a week ago, actually not very far from where we are right now. Well, that helped…
The rest of the time we spend next to a policecar because I refuse to go anywhere else.
When the boys finally arrive (over an hour late) I feel stong enough to leave our blue friends and we wander around the city.
Ricci wants to make me feel better by telling me how much more dangerous his city, Mexico City, is. He tells me lots of stories about kidnapping and other stuff and when he finally finishes I say „Thanks for those lovely stories Ricci but all you managed to do is make me never want to go to Mexico City.“

Edu is trying to do his best to make me like the city. He is showing us around, pointing out all the good stuff. But I’m just not feeling it. It seems too big and confusing to me. And all the policecars are just making me nervous. Seems like I am the countrygirl I never wanted to be.

We then have to meet Riccis friends who are in Madrid for a couple of days. To get to the meeting point we have to take the subway.
I have to mention here that on our way from Martas place to the square we realised that one of the metros was cut. Of course not before we got off one subway and didn’t have another to change in.
Knowing that we decide to take a different one to meet Riccis friends but once we arrive at the subway station we realise that this one is cut too.
So we get to the meeting point half an hour too late and Riccis friends have already left.
It takes us a while until we find them and a nice place to have tapas. The place was nice but the the waitress is rude and the sangria is bad. At least the food is good and even though the whole day was a bit stressful we have a great time. … Until everyone decides to speak Spanish through the whole dinner.
Now at this point I have to mention that all five of them speak perfect English. I am trying to understand how a whole group of lovely and nice people can not notice that one person is not understanding a word they’re saying and is bored to death. But it seems to me, and I’ve been in those kind of situations before, that as soon as a Spanish group reaches the size of four people it is impossible to get them to speak English.
Anyway, even though the dinner wasn’t the most exciting one I was very happy to see the boys again! I will miss them a lot and really hope they will come and visit me soon!! -only three at a time though! -

We say goodbye to Riccis friends and Edu offers to take us with his car to a subway station closer to Martas place. From there it’s only three or fours stops to the south of Madrid and then a couple more with another one to Mostoles.
We have to hurry because it is close to midnight and that’s when the first subway stops running. We arrive there in time but it wouldn’t be the perfect ending of the day if everything would word out fine. So of course this line is cut too. (And that after Edu told me how amazing the subways in Madrid are.)
As this is the one and only subway that goes to the south we don’t know what to do. But we are not alone. About 60 other people have the same problem.
We get told that there is a bus which of course doesn’t come for ages but then finally gets us home around 2am.
We laugh about this strange day and fall into deep sleep.

16th of July
We get up late again, have another nice lunch made by Martas dad and then go back to Madrid. Adventurous you might think but this time everything works out fine. Well most of it as we were supposed to meet the boys again but they realise the same morning that they are leaving to Brussels the next day but thought they would leave on the friday. So they have to get organised and have no time to see us.
Marta qnd I visit the gay and alternative part of the city which is really nice and makes me feel a lot more comfortable.
We have a drink there, see an amazing street performer and head back home.
This time we don’t take the risk and take the bus instead of the subway.
We go straight to bed as I have to catch an early train back to Barcelona.

Martas father says goodbye to me with the words „You are welcome to come back any time. This is your country – this is your home – this is your family.“
Here I want to thank all the Spanish families again. If they know one thing than how to welcome people in their homes, in their lives. I always felt very comfortable and welcome in all the different places and I really appreciate that.
Thank you for having me there!!