coincidences, and caitlin!

6/30: so i boarded my train last night and found my "room". there were two canadian girls already in there, sarah and sabrina. turns out they were pretty awesome, and we had a lot in common, including musical tastes. sarah had just graduated from queens, and sabrina had graduated a year ago and had been working and living in barcelona for a year. AND we were staying in the same hostel in madrid! crazy, eh?
then our fourth roommate came in. she was a bit older but very friendly. she was brazilian and had recently moved to madrid (and was still struggling with the spanish). she didn´t speak any english but sabrina and i are pretty fluent in spanish so we were able to communicate just fine. she was really sweet and invited us to hang out by the pool at her house in madrid! she said her 26 year old son would love to hang out and show us around (oh would he??) she gave us her address and phone number - we may just have to take her up on the offer!
then she was talking about how on the way to lisbon (she had gone for the weekend for a convention) she was stuck in a seat and how cold it had been. after i started making the same complaints, we both did a double take and realized that we had been sitting right next to each other on our trip from madrid to lisbon! weirdddd. too bad we hadn´t talked more on that trip (i had assumed she only spoke portuguese and she had assumed i only spoke english).
after a surprisingly great night sleep (there is something peaceful about the rhythmic sound of a train), we woke up in madrid. i went to the hostel with sarah and sabrina to check in. we dropped off our bags and went out for coffee and then to retiro park, the largest park in madrid. we hung out by the lake for a few hours until it was time for me to go meet caitlin at the airport.

at the airport i ended up having to wait for nearly two hours because the flight was delayed a bit and caitlin had had some issues with her bag (which was so big, it made my mom´s bag look tiny! and she was only there 10 days! oooh caitlin). then we went back to the hostel, showered, and went out for tapas and sangria.
caitlin was really jetlagged so we came back early, did some more trip planning, and now off to bed!

ps. caitlin´s arrival also meant the arrival of my debit card! i had made it the whole time with very limited cash! i will have to go out for a nice dinner this week!