All this here is to say that on Day 3 in Madrid, exiting the subway in the same place, vaguely remembering the surroundings, walking around the block – I ACCIDENTALLY MET THE SAME GIRL, Laura!!! What is the probability of that?! Another great coincidence, adding to meeting Roman on the first night :)
Saturday is also the day of visiting my dear old flat in the Delicias region, a bit south from the main railway station called Atocha. And it was like a trip back in time, seeing the Romanian women Elena & Alina, who lived there also before. And my link to visit the place this time was Sarah, also from Romania – an exchange who is staying for the full study year. She actually moved in exactly when the first semester crowd (me, Kristine, Witek) were moving out... It was great to see her again!
We had a bit of dinner, and just for old times sake, I drank tea from MY cup (which I’d brought along from Latvia for the Erasmus semester), and ate chicken from OUR plate (which we bought in winter in the downstairs Chinese shop). Between sharing some memories and stories from the time we’d missed inbetween, and having some wine in the kitchen, I discovered several things: (1) the kitchen is a lot cleaner now than it used to be – although I can say honestly that it was not our fault that it was rather dirty back then... (2) the past-middle-aged Russian couple who now live in our room are just lovely – besides learning their names (Ljuba & Aleks) they told us quite a bit about their home region Sotchi; (3) there is a club for middle-aged Romanian women somewhere – Elena & her friend looked nice when going out to party after having a bit of wine with us students. Not all can be described by words, so here is a photo proof of the clean kitchen ;)
We spent quite some time in the dear flat on Caceres street that day. Among other things, I got Sarah addicted to juggling, and left the Romanian song Lele (by Loredana, who is famous in her country..) (check the video in YouTube ;) haunting her for days. So, when she went to the center to meet a Romanian friend, and I went back to Aluche neighborhood to change into a warmer evening outfit, I already had to leave the SSE Riga labeled juggling balls to her place, because she said she needed to practice :)
Arriving back to the town, I had hell of a lot of trouble finding the Irish pub she said she was in, with that friend of hers. Wandering around the labyrinth of the streets around the central Puerta del Sol, some students stopped me to ask something in clumsy Spanish. And guess what – they wanted to know if I can guide them to an English/Irish pub nearby :) So we continued walking and searching together – me and the exchange students from Poland, USA, and Ethiopia... After about 10 minutes of special search operations, we discovered that we weren’t looking for the same pub after all. But on a positive note – their Dubliners and my O’Connell were exactly next to each other, about 100m from where we started the search... The others also stepped into O’Connell for a moment, because their betraying friends had left Dubliners right before we found it :) But they also stepped out soon, because some girls thought something was stinking in that place. I, on the other hand, found the place neatly noisy & crowded, with a cool Irish pub atmosphere. And the service personnel is cute and helpful, as I had the chance to discover in the next couple of nights...
So there is where we met up with Sarah again, and after a beer and some chat with her friend and her, they continued the night at a club (which sucked totally, as I heard the next day :) I, as a nice guy ever, arrived home at a bit before 5 AM already...
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