Flamingo or flamenco?

After classes today Jenny Lexi and I headed to Madrid to see a flamenco performance! We barely made the metro to get there before the 7 showing. We made sure to spare time to get our candy for during the performance. The theater was much smaller than what I was expecting but that didn't hinder the dancers whatsoever. I don't know much about the types of flamenco but the costumes were incredible. The long, flowing skirts were very flattering and seemed like a fun outfit to dance in. Flamenco is a style of dance that reminded me of tap dancing - it seemed like the dancers almost made their own beat and music to dance to. As Jenny, Lexi and I "quietly" ate our Haribo candy they stomped and moved at incredibly fast rates. I kept thinking to myself if the dancers got bad shin splints or anything like that. There was one guy who had longer hair and when he got sweaty and would turn his head, his hair would stick to his face - it was more distracting than you'd think. There were several duos that went on for a while and were amazing to see how long they could stomp their feet. During one, the curtain in the back of the stage became transparent and you could see the little band playing the music. There was one singer which we kind of laughed at because it sounded like he was moaning more than staying in tune. There was another performance where they had blue strobe lights which was pretty trippy. Then the best was when a retiree flamenco dancer came out (we swear she was pushing 60 years old) and whipped out a solo. It was really funny because the male dancers then brought out canes at the end of that performance.

After the flamenco, we walked along Gran Via which is the main road that has most of the brand name shops. They love Zara and H&M here. The have a store called the Mango store which had really trendy and stylish things. I'm in search for my Madrid genuine leather bolso or chaquetta so we'll see. We began wandering around to find a good place to eat and headed down this one alley-way. Jenny brought up how her Madrid guidebook warned to stay away from an alleyway close to Gran Via so we were thinking of turning around when we walked staight into el puerta del Sol which was really funny.

We found a cute restaurant on a side street. When we walked in we noticed that we were the only people under the age of 50 which was hilarious. Our Spanish was really terrible tonight so our waiter wasn't really that friendly with us and we did everything we could to get on his good side. (Side note: everywhere here they will charge you for the complimentary bread we are used to in the U.S. And always ask for a vaso de agua instead of just "agua" because they will bring out a nice bottle of mineral water and charge you for it...) When we finally paid the check we realized we had spent so much time wandering and had to make it back to the station for the last train to Alcala - that's going to be quite an obstacle this semester when everyone here stays out so late.