Flamenco is redeemed... Madrid metro is not.

A tearful walk home after grabbing my mom one last taxi to the airport and now I am back to my "normal" life in Madrid full of catching up on a week of gym time and class work and SLEEP. Letting my mom in on the Madrid experience was phenomenal, and it was so nice to bring a slice of familiarity into my life here even if just for a short time.
Madrid was not so kind to my mom when she first got here. Being the terrible daughter that I am, I didn't meet her at the airport and she ended up driving around for two hours in her rental car looking for the obscure street signs that are placed in odd locations on the sides of buildings in size 12 font. Turns out, she drove back to the airport, turned in her rental car, and took a taxi to the hotel. Within thirty minutes of that fiasco I wanted to show her sights so we hopped on the metro towards plaza de Espana and Retiro Park. After strolling through the park and walking through the streets to the plaza, she realized that her wallet was gone. She was pick pocketed on the metro. After calling her credit card company it turns out whoever took her card attempted 1400 dollar and 800 dollar purchases unsuccessfully (imagine that). Despite having the credit card company freeze her account after sending a back up card every other purchases and resorting to my atm account which is now near zero, her trip ran quite smoothly and extremely enjoyable after that. We ate a nice lunch at my favorite Italian place, DiBocca and had a glass of wine to drown our sorrows of the lost items of our past...
That night, she had a real dining experience of drifting from tapas bar to tapas bar starting with an unusually dissapointing El Tigre much to my dismay. The quote of the evening I must say was, "Well,I'm American. People just look at me and want me to speak American, because if I didn't it would be insulting." My mother in Madrid. Getting home very late only to wake up to fly to Portugal three hours later set the theme of no sleep for the week. True Spainards.
Our hotel in Lisbon, Portugal could not have been situated in a more perfect location--on the corner of the most popular shopping streets with a famous plaza and the ocean a block away. We dropped off our luggage (after arriving in the city at 8 am) and walked (i.e. HIKED) to the Se cathedral (built in the 12th century) and the Castillo de S. Jorge which overlooked Portugal and had an excellent view of the town and the gulf. The castle was once used as a fortress and still had canons amongst the ruins and outside of the dry moats surrounding the main towers and interior. It also had an excessive amount of cats sunning on the grassy terrace...added to the experience? Jet lag and fatigue forced us to wander back to our hotel and nap for a bit. We woke up to a group of teens singing Elton John just below our window--they were extremely good, until we realized they only knew one song and it began to get excessive after the fifth or sixth time?
We took one of those ancient cars from the 18th century (Mom-what are they called? and how does that EVEN work after all that time??) that drives you up a hill and drops you off and found a great wine and sandwich place with a GORGEOUS view. That sandwich was fantastic. Later that night we searched for the aquaduct, and ended up walking inside a skyscraper hotel like we were guests and taking the elevator up on the first floor. We found the aquaduct lit up overlooking highways after we walked onto the outside staircase, pushing my purse in the doorway so we wouldn't get locked out on the 22nd floor. We ended up passing it again in our taxi on the way to the airport and it was even more grand in the daylight. Mom and I attempted to walk to Belem, a part of Lisbon, but just found a taxi who took us to one of his favorite restaurant locations on the boardwalk. The cute host lured us in with his wine samples and we were sold on one the most expensive meals I've had-complete with very chewy steak I couldn't chew so had to stuff through the cracks of the boardwalk instead of leaving it in my fancy napkin. I was MADE for fine dining. Lisbon was a ghost town at 11:30 on a Friday night, so Mom and I wandered looking at beautiful wedding gowns and ended up finding ourselves in a closing Italian restaurant sharing a delicious Tiramisu.
The next morning we saw the 16th century defense structure, Torre de Belem, overlooking Lisbon's Tagus River, and the beautiful Jeronimos Monastery. The Monastery had a very large, very eerie gothic cathedral, complete with a sculpture of Jesus on the cross (with his side wound gushing) overlooking the very dark, very gothic sanctuary. Vasco de Gama's remains added to the light and happiness the cathedral possessed. The actual Cloister of the monastery was beautifully built in the Manueline style, popular in the early 16th century and was very beautifully detailed. One thing that my mom and I noticed were all of the mystical creatures many of these types of structures had sculpted into the walls and designs--these were odd, eerie, and showed the paganism that this time period dealt with. We wandered. Past closed palaces due to the visit China's president was paying to Lisbon that day. We did wander (i.e. HIKEEEE) up this extra large hill to the Palacio Nacional de Ajuda and toured that GORGEOUS home of the royal Portuguese family of the 19th century. My mom took illegal pictures. Tourists these days. They had a large dining room set up for one hundred people that was the sight for dinner that night for China's president. What a life.
That night, after our casual night stay in a different country, Mom experienced her first kebap (better than the 70 euro dinner??) and later we found a great street close to my house full of cute bars. We split a bottle of wine, had great conversation, and went out for late night pizza.
The next morning was RASTROMARKET. Scarves basically sums up our wild shopping experience as I believe we bought 23948 each.
That night. we experienced. the futbol match. of a lifetime. Real Madrid v Barcelona. Of course Christiano Ronaldo proposed and I had to politely decline, but he still managed to pull it together and played rather well. The fans were WILD. (No wonder alcohol is forbidden in the futbol stadium!) I was decked out in my pink Real Madrid scarf. The game was excellent and we even had a gal who flew out from France telling us the play by play. Even though my mom and I ate an entire bag of potato chips, honey almonds, and corn nuts, we still found it necessary to grab a mojito with Mel, Bailey, Nick, and Micheal after the game. Mom really felt like a college student with the conversations we were having I'm sure...
Andddd we were off to Seville early in the morning. We took the express train which was excellent, so smooth, and lulled us to sleep as it grazed the Spanish country side. We hit the ground running in Seville seeing the sights and walking miles and miles past the beautiful orange and lemon trees. We saw the largest gothic cathedral in the world (with Christopher Columbus's tomb inside) complete with the largest plateresque gold alter ever created. It was breathtakingly overwhelming and to be honest gave both of us a slight headache... Even though the bell tower of the cathedral was a climb, we made it up the 34 floors and the bells even rang upon our arrival.
The Real Alcazar of Sevilla, Europe's oldest palace in use, was absolutely gorgeous and looked QUITE similar to the Alhambra of Granada with its Mudejar architecture and beautiful gardens. I was happy my mom was able to see something so beautiful and so different than anything else you can find in the world. Large tapestries, elaborate decorations...
We then got lost on our way to Casa de Pilates becuase I decided we should take a detour on the "cute bright little street" instead of follow the map. Once we finally did make it there, the lady said we were only able to tour the bottom floor becuase the palace was closing in thirty min. Of course we toured that in literally FIVE minutes (don't get me wrong, it was grand and gorgeous) being American and all. It was quite comical and so we sat on a bench instead of leaving eight minutes into the trip. Later that night I decided my mom had to experience Flamenco for herself and I must say the show was much better than the one in Granada. Pretty dresses, INCREDIBLE impromptu spanish guitar, much talent, excellent show. I even enjoyed the authentic Flamenco singing (i.e. slight wailing in certain stanzas--ehh esta bien).
Braved the rain the next morning and took a covered river tour, had the most delicious KEBAP (Mom is now hooked.), and took the train back. Mom experienced a fresh and delicious Paella dinner with Senora and my roomates and we went out for a drink with Stephanie and her dad (great family!).
Woke up to the best three euro American breakfast from Vips and hasta luego-- 41 days to mi madre. I'm so happy she was able to share this experience with me. I have so many blessings in my life, an amazing loving family being at the top of the list.
...and my new Madrid Aveda hairstyle being not at the top. The day before my mother arrived, I decided my roots were showing and should be trusted to Madrid's Aveda. Three people involved in my hair dye process later and I was not happy. However, my roots are not showing, it was free, and my roomates didn't even notice. How self-critical are women. Esta bien.
Sleep is necessary, homework is calling... and between Ireland, France, Prague, and Amsterdam in my future I'm thinking both of those things need to get taken care of.