There was a sale on fiber-optic enhanced pictures of Jesus outside of the Metro this afternoon. I just thought I'd share...

Anyway, I saw mom and Auntie El again last night and it seems like they had a good trip. They said it was nice weather, just cold. There were many stories to tell, many friends made (only my mother could walk down the street of a foreign country and find people she knows) and they are now international women with ambitions to travel the world. I'm going to work on Spain for now.

Matt and I met them at their hotel last night and we walked down Grand Via, which is basically the Times Square of Madrid and major tourist area. We found a little diner/ cafeteria place and had a nice meal. There were no unidentifiable creatures on our plates this time. After we returned to their room, picked up some bottles of wine, and slowly made our way back to my Senora's house. We had some coffee and treats and they got to meet my new family, see where I'm living and mom got to practice her Spanish (at which point my Senora told me that it was possible that her Spanish is better than mine...who knew?) We took a cab back to the hotel after dessert and we said our goodbyes. They were heading out this afternoon at about 13:00.

After we had put them to bed, Matt and I walked toward Sol to meet up with some friends. We finally tracked them down and eventually wound up at Ego. We socialized for a little bit and then the crowd decided to move on to another club, Kapital. There was a great deal of arguing and indecisiveness, but we finally made it. We waited of the club for a bit because there was a guest list and if you weren't on it the cover was $12 and none of us were ready to pay that. Eventually a friend of someone came out and gave us some ridiculous name to memorize like Fasheem Asdfksadr and six of us tried walking up to the bouncer to let us in. To which she replied "Yvonne?" Joe, a kid in our group, repeated the name several times until the bouncer asked "Yvonne?" again and Joe hesitantly said "Yes...." and she let us all in.

It wasn't a very busy night at Kapital, but the place had a very interesting ambiance. It was four clubs in one and basically every room you go in there is a new atmosphere. There is a main dancefloor on the bottom level where there is a stage with professional dancers (obscenely muscular men in tight white pants and women in bikinis with white fishnet dresses over it) who just stand on platforms and dance). Then at the back there is a little section of raised booths and seats where you can just hang out. There are also couches all along the edges of the bottom level and a bar at the way back and on either side. The bar is really weird...you have to go to a little booth before you go to the bar and pay for everything that you want and they give you a little ticket. You bring the ticket to the bar tender and they make it for you. There was another dance floor on an upper level with two rooms of couches with white sheer fabric dividing them from the dance floor. There was a room for kareoke with a bar of its own. It was way too over-priced, but the whole idea of it was fun. I felt like a prude though walking around. I went to the bathroom and when I was washing my hands there were two girls that came out of a stall they had been in together and I was just thinking...I really don't fit in here tonight with my little white t-shirt and cardigan and loafers. But it definitely hit me that I'm in Europe. I felt like I was in a scene of Trainspotting.

We decided that we'd stick around and close the place down at 6:00 because that's when the Metro starts running again. We made our travels home with the first commuters of the day. They were just starting their day, as we were about to end ours. We made it home at about 7:00 and went straight to bed.

I'm off to get my costume for Carnaval this weekend. Then I have to come back and get ready to catch our bus. I'm glad I'm tired...maybe I'll actually sleep on the bus this time...