Lili and I got up nice and late. We were in absolute no rush, and the only thing on our mind upon throwing on some clothes was food! As I hadn't eaten much in the past few days and was feeling uncharacteristically ravenous, I decided to ask if Lili would be interested in going to the restaurant under my apartment for some super delicious Spanish seafood paella. Her twinkling eyes were all the response I needed and within five minutes we were sitting on the terrace having a drink! The paella took its sweet time in getting to us, but it was WELL worth the wait! Paella and tinto de verano brunch FTW!!!!!
After our scrumptious meal, I took her on a mini tour of Alcala and we took our pictures in the most touristy spots before ultimately heading to the train station to go into Madrid. I'd asked her the night before if there was anything in particular she wanted to see and her response was simply that she wanted to have a fun, relaxed weekend! She said if there was anything I had wanted to do but hadn't had a friend to do it with, she'd be up for it.
Best guest response ever! I felt absolutely no pressure to run around and show her the famous sites, and instead got to really enjoy my time with her just hanging out. Upon arriving in the city, we immediately got a frozen yogurt, as the temperature was in the high 90s and poor Lili was melting! Next, I took her to Retiro where we rented a boat for 45 minutes and spent the time well crashing into other boats, giggling, snapping photos of each other and even recording a video of me singing "Row Row Row Your Boat"!!!!! ^_^ After our second frozen treat of the day, we spread out my picnic blanket and took a sunny siesta for an hour and a half!! Most relaxing afternoon I've ever spent in a park!
When we finally told each other we had to get up and stop being so lazy, I roused her by proposing a Starbucks frappucino and dress shopping at Desigual. Awesome. :) The cold drinks hit the spot, and Lili bought a really cute dress at Desigual (and I may have began to dangerously rekindle my love with the giant Callao store, too, after I tried dresses on just for the fun of it with her!).
It was already 9ish when we realized we were getting hungry for dinner, and we picked a random restaurant near Mercado San Miguel which turned out to be super delicious!!! We shared three tapas and some sangria and talked and talked. The best tapa we had was definitely the pork solomillo with Pedro Ximenez sauce... Oh my goodness. It's kinda like what I envision a dish called "Pork Marsala" would taste like; the brown sauce was almost maplesque, which made the meat very sweet and tender! Yummmmmmmy!!!
Although our original plan had been to go out dancing when we got home, a 45 minute train ride later and we were pooped. Between this and our fairly early Sunday morning ahead of us, we turned in earlier than normal people should, but it just made the overall day that much more rejuvenating!
XOXO
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