Bachelorette-ing in Madrid!

So I'm pretty sure everyone that reads this already knows me, and knows the big news, but in case there's any readers out there who don't know me, I'm getting married!! The big day is in June (in Spain), and to prepare accordingly, last weekend my friends kidnapped me for a bachelorette party!

In Spain, bachelor and bachelorette parties are normally an entire weekend long, and a complete surprise to the bride or groom. The friends usually plan a big trip to another city, steal the bride or groom on a Friday afternoon, and drop him/her back home almost dead on Sunday. Also in the norm is to dress up the bride or groom, or the group as whole. Normally the outfit the bride or groom has to wear is completely ridiculous and/or embarrassing. I've seen all sorts of costumes, including a fat superman, a male ballerina, a gay cowboy, an eighties workout video instructor, etc. (Almost all of these costumes have been for friends of mine or Héctor's) Luckily my friends love me and didn't dress me up in anything, but they did follow the secret aspect, almost to a T.

One day in March, I got this message from one of my friends:

Ok...no questions. But did more information follow? NO

I didn't think much more about it until the week before May 10th, when I started getting more and more nervous. Héctor started telling me to pack a bag on Wednesday! I think he was trying to confuse me as to when the party would actually start. I finally packed a bag on Friday morning but its so so hard to pack a bag when you have no idea where you're going or what you're going to do! Plus, I'm notoriously bad at packing the right clothes. 

So Friday afternoon rolls around and I'm just sitting around anxiously wondering what is going to happen. Are they going to come for me? No, they wouldn't all come up from Madrid. Then we'd have to stay in Logroño, that would be weird. Maybe they rented a car and we're going to the beach. Maybe not, that's expensive....  Finally Héctor was going to leave to play padel and goes, "Come with me! Hurry, lets go!" And he took me to the bus station, gave me bus tickets, and put me on the bus- to Madrid. Finally, I knew where I was going!

When I arrived, the bus had gotten there early so none of my friends had gotten there yet. Luckily one friend arrived shortly after and we got a coffee to wait for the other one to arrive. After that we had some wine and cheese at Steph's house, where I was going to stay the whole weekend. Dinner was some delicious Riojan wine and tapas at a bar around the corner. We called it a night early so that we would be prepared for Saturday!

Drea, Steph, me, and Abby. Also they bought me beautiful flowers!

The next morning Steph and I went to eat breakfast on a terrace next to the park while we waited for "Drea" to come meet with us. Turns out  it wasn't Drea we were waiting for- it was Caroline and Tess! Who had both traveled over 6 hours to spend the weekend with me :). And Tess had repeatedly told me that she was sorry but she wasn't going to be able to come. Sneaky.

For lunch we headed to Parque Retiro with a few bottles of wine and picnic food to have a picnic! (no one will let me put up the ONLY picture we have at the actual picnic (they say its ugly), but here are a couple in the park:

Then Drea made us go visit the peacocks:

 Then we headed back to the house to get all pretty for dinner:

 The restaurant was a special one, including dinner and a show. It's called Gula Gula, and its very common with bachelorette parties....

If you want an idea of what kind of restaurant/show it was, here is our waiter 

(he had already changed out of his high heels)

The last "phase" of my bachelorette weekend was brunch!!! Unfortunately Tess had to catch an early bus, so she wasn't able to go to brunch with us :'(. The restaurant was a tiny little place called "La Gringa" and had the most amazing brunch menu. I wanted to eat everything. I settled on huevos rancheros with a side of hashbrowns and a coffee with *soy* milk. I say it like that because no bars ever have soy milk in Logroño. The food was so amazing, we didn't talk until our plates were empty, and then we ordered a slice of carrot cake to share! And when we left, we were all so full we had to go for a walk. 

 The most delicious brunch menu, and coffee with soy milk!

Steph grew a mustache... 

 

EATING

A furry cactus, and me outside of the restaurant. Someone needs to open a branch in Logroño!

In front of the Royal Palace in Madrid...somehow it didn't make it into the picture!

Anyway, I just want to end by saying that I have the most amazing friends, and you all made me feel so special, and I had THE MOST FANTABULOUS WEEKEND! Love and besos, Nicole :)