May 25, 2012

Republished from their personal blog with permission from the authors, we’re going to catch up with Gamecock volleyball student-athletes Cara Howley and Lindsey Craft during their trip to Spain as part of their international business program. Content may be edited from its original form. This was originally posted on May 12.

I am pretty sure that we fell in love with Madrid. Whether it was the Starbucks coffee, a beautiful firework show, botanic gardens or incredible shopping, we decided we want to live here forever! We arrived on Friday and explored the city by foot, stumbling across a royal palace and a large festival in the Plaza Mayor. Afterward, we were amazed by how many people were out at night. It almost seems as if people come out of hiding at night just to fill the streets and party until the morning light. We also found some crazy street performers and a fun market where we sampled many Spanish tapas and exotic foods.

The next morning we woke up and walked through the botanic gardens (after grabbing the best vanilla latte we have ever tried, of course). The rest of the day was spent taking double decker buses through the city and getting on and off at random stops to see all of the sights. It was a hot but awesome day followed by a very memorable night. We walked to the park late after dinner just in time to catch the most spectacular firework show in the park. The fireworks were set to orchestrated music and were shot up over the lake in the park. We weren’t the only ones to enjoy the beautiful show, because it seemed like all of Madrid was there to watch! The coolest part of the whole show was the intro, which just happened to be the same song that our football team runs out to at football games!!

Sadly, in the morning we have to say goodbye to wonderful Madrid. Lindsey and I loved it so much that we decided to come back before we go see our good friend Juliette in Belgium in a couple weeks! Salamanca bound in the morning!