Last Day in Spain

Playing: Ready to Go-Panic! at the Disco(Love the costumes in this video! Super pretty and fun to watch!)
Reading: Hollister Models Post Racist Photos from South Korea Store Opening, Get Fired by Valerie Isakova

For breakfast on our last day in Spain, my family and I faced another day of not really caring about where we ate, since we were pretty tired of everything by then. We ended up at a cheap chain called Radilla, where I ordered the Aguja de Ternera. According to my brother's pretty basic Spanish, it's filled with veal and I tasted some red bell peppers. It was only ok, but I was pleasantly surprised by how flaky and buttery the crust was. Radilla served tons of sketchy looking sandwiches, filled with creamy fillings, but everyone there seemed to be enjoying them and my family said they were good.

We spent most of our morning walking around the Almudena Cathedral, which was interesting because it's one of the few cathedrals I've visited that was made fairly recently. Its hallways were filled with artifacts and different religious relics, but the actual church part was the nicest. It wasn't anything special or so outrageous that you just had to visit it. Truthfully, my family and I were running out of places to visit, so we ended up just going to sites that weren't highly recommended by tour books just to fill up our time.

Across from the Reina Sofia, there weren't many places to eat at, so we stopped by a convenience store, bought a few drinks, and asked the guy where we should eat. He was from China, so of course he recommended a Chinese place to us. Restaurant Chino was surprisingly good, considering most of my meals in Spain were pretty mediocre. We ordered Dumplings, Beef with Onions, Singapore Fried Noodles with Curry, Eggplant Stuffed Meat, and Chicken with Black Mushrooms and Bamboo, which were all pretty good. The service was friendly and they spoke alright English, alright Spanish, and fluent Chinese.

After lunch, we went to the Reina Sofia and got in for free because it was Saturday. Out of the three art museums that Madrid is famous for, I thought this one was the weakest. It might've been because it really was the weakest or that I was just tired of visiting so many art museums. I did however like the building. I loved the bold color, sleek lines, and use of glass to break up the redness of it all. It was fascinating to look at from all angles and side.

For dinner, we ate at Restaurante Asador, which is on a street right off Plaza Mayor. I had the Centra de Solomillo de cebon con Foie, which basically means steak with foie gras, I think. The food here was rather good, but overpriced, and the service was friendly too. When you're in Spain, I recommend skipping main dishes and just ordering a bunch of appetizers. The appetizers we got there were the best part, even though they accidentally gave us another guest's food and we dug into it, not knowing it wasn't ours. They served us this really beautiful, glass water bottle and I thought they were going to toss it like we do in the USA, so I stole it. The waiter came after me to explain that they actually have to return the water bottle and I couldn't take it. How terribly awkward...I don't steal things; I promise. I just thought they were going to toss it and I saw so much artistic potential in it.

We ended up at Puerta de Sol, which is supposed to be the center of Spain and the place where all roads start. We pretty much ended up here every single night because the night life was interesting and for me, there were cute boys to stare at. I'm not a creeper nor am I desperate. I just like pretending I'm a model scout. "Oh, he has a nice face, but he's too short." "He would be perfect, if his eyes were brown." Yes, I'm very critical, when it comes to my model scouting. Overall, Spain was nice, but it wasn't the most amazing trip I've had. It's more of a trendy spot aimed at college students for partying and drinking. Even though Madrid is supposed to be more historical, I found Barcelona to be more enjoyable. Would I rank this as a must see place? Probably not, but that's not to say I didn't like Spain. I did like Spain, just not as much as some other places I've been to.

PS My favorite band, Jack's Mannequin, is splitting up and I absolutely need to get tickets for their last concert. However, I don't want to give $400 to scalpers because I want the money I spend on the tickets to go to the Dear Jack Foundation, not some scumbag. 

Spain: Day 7 Part 2

Playing: Boys Don't Cry-The Cure
Reading: Elle September 2012

Since Madrid was exceptionally hot, almost as hot as Southern California in August, I found myself sharing lots of gelato with my brother, Ted. At Heladerias Italiano, which was practically right next door to the Hotel Atlantico that I stayed at, we shared two scoops of Frambuesa y Mora (Raspberry and Blackberry). The blackberry was definitely better than the raspberry. For me, the raspberry was a tad too sweet after the first few bites. The service wasn't very friendly at all, so I would suggest going to another place instead.

We pretty much just sat in our hotel room for awhile, since it was so hot outside and we saw practically everything the tour books and hotel recommended. I sat inside and worked on my summer assignments, but for dinner, we decided to go to the world famous, Sobrino de Botin, which is the oldest restaurant in the world and Hemingway even wrote about. Once again, my brother and I shared some food, but this time it was the Garlic Soup with Egg. Overall, it wasn't all that great. It had the texture of soggy bread and tasted mostly like bacon with no discernible garlic taste to it. I would definitely skip on this.

Of course, if you visit, you have to try what they're famous for, right? So it was pretty obvious that I had to try the Roast Suckling Pig. For me, I found it pretty bland and disappointing, but my dad and brother loved it, so who knows. I found the skin to be chewy to the point of being inedible, while the meat was dry and the potatoes had no flavor. Even though this is a world famous restaurant, I wouldn't recommend it to you, since the prices are unbelievably high for pork and the all the food I ordered was very average, if not below average.

After dinner, we just walked around and came across the Mercado de San Miguel, which was absolutely lovely. I loved how it housed tons of placed to get hors d'oeuvres and main entrees too. It looked very trendy and it seemed like everyone was getting small bites from all the places. Prince Charles and Camilla were there, according to a yogurt place that claimed they had eaten there. I definitely wish I had eaten here at least once, since everything looked so good.

Both Barcelona and Madrid seemed to have had a large gay population. In Barcelona, I stumbled across a Gay Pride Festival on my first day and in Madrid, they had tons of rainbow themed food. It was fun to see all of this, since I don't see a lot of this, where I live. Plus, all the rainbow colors were fun to look at. I was tempted to buy one of these to see if each color was a different flavor...

In Spain, my family and I walked around a lot, looking at things with no real plans. It was nice though at night to see all these college age kids running around because most of the other places I've visited catered to families and not the party scene. At night, I liked to go up to the top floor of my hotel, the Hotel Atlantico, just to look around. Everything just looked so pretty from up above.

Spain: Day 7 Part 1

Playing: Carla-Life in Film
Reading: Mayflower by Nathanial Philbrick

For breakfast, my family and I had given up on trying to find a place to eat, so we went to a chain restaurant (Oh my goodness, a chain! How mainstream!) called Café&Té, where I ordered the Spanish Brunch #3. It came with orange juice, hot tea, garlic mushrooms, pantumaca, scrambled eggs with ham, and toast. For the price of €7:50, you got a lot of food, even a bit too much for any one person to devour. In the photo, it showed the scrambled eggs with ham and mushrooms separated, so I was surprised to find it all mixed together. It tasted like any other American breakfast except for the pantumaca, which I've only had in Spain.

After breakfast, we went to El Real Jardin Botanico, which is the royal botanical garden. Very pretty and we went before it got hot that way we could enjoy it without complaining to each other about the heat. It's a nice place to walk around and by the end of our time in Madrid, we had started to run out of things to do, so we started to just visit gardens, plazas, and markets. After the park, we went to Museo Thyssen for two hours, which was way too long in my opinion. By then, that was our sixth art museum, so all of us except for my dad were getting tired of art museums. Therefore, I can't give you a good review of how it was.

For lunch, we ate at Cafe del Circulo de Bellas Arte, who had a price fixed menu to choose from. For my appaetizer, I ordered the Saute Artichokes with Cured Ham, which was very good. The artichoke was tender and filling, while the cured ham gave it a nice smoky flavor. they also had a too sweet balsamic vinegar reduction to dip your artichokes in. It was large enough to be an entree by itself.

 

For the entree, I got the Pampano Fisherman's style, which wasn't very good at all. The fish taste was overwhelming and every other bite was filled with bones. Plus, the shrimp were hard to eat and the fish was overcooked. I definitely would recommend ordering a different dish there. You also got a dessert with this, but I didn't understand the waitress' English very well, so all I heard was "chocolate" out of her long list of desserts available, so I just said chocolate and ended up getting a chocolate pudding. No picture necessary.

We then walked on to the Parque de El Retiro, which was gorgeous, but terribly hot. I ended up hiding a lot in the shade there, but they had this glass house by a pond there, which housed a whole art installation by the modern artist Nacho Creodo. The art installation was interesting, but I hid in there mostly because it was air conditioned and there were quite a few groups of cute guys there.

See, I told you, cute guys. Well, this is going to make me look creepy, but I took quite a few stalker photos of well dressed and/or cute guys that way I could try to convince my guy friends to let me redo their wardrobe. I like how guys in Europe wear colored jeans and collared tops all the time. I also like how the guy in green jeans kind of looks like a Persian Brendon Urie. Too perfect. Well hopefully, you don't find me too creepy by now. I should go.

Spain: Day 6 Part 2

Playing: Do You Know What I Mean?-One Night Only
Reading: To Buy or DIY? by Leandra Medine

After our visit to the Plaza Mayor, my family and I decided to check out the Museu del Jamon, which looked like a chain restaurant/market revolved around prosciutto. It was amazing to see how many hind legs they had hanging up and how the hooves were still attached to the prosciutto. I haven't seen this since my trip to Florence. Looking back, I should've eaten here at least once.

Since we were craving our own prosciutto, we stopped by Ferpal to get some hand cut prosciutto slices to snack on. It was cool to see this man cutting the slices by hand so quickly and thinly without using a machine. We ended up sitting outside, people watching, while eating all of the prosciutto we had bought. Once we finished eating, we went to the Convento de las Descalzas Reales, which was a complete rip off. For all Europeans, the admission is free, but the tour is only given in Spanish and you spend the whole time looking at art. You don't get to see how the nuns live and at least for my family, we had to pay for a tour we didn't understand.

For dinner, my brother and I shared two appetizers at Cafe de Chinitas. For our first appetizer, we got the Melon with Ham. Can you tell that we couldn't get enough prosciutto on the trip? Pretty standard dish though, just slices of prosciutto and some chunks of melon. Nothing special, but very pricey!

We also ordered the Fried Squid Andaluza Style, which was only ok. The calamari was pretty meaty, but I found the batter to be flavorless and suggest trying something else. Once again, it cost more than it should've. At least the portions were big here.

The main reason we went to Cafe de Chinitas was to catch a flamenco show before we left. It was definitely worth seeing and the show is the main reason the food is so expensive. The dancers were extremely impressive and they had a singer there that looked like Mick Jagger. (I will try to find the photo on my dad's camera for all of you.) The show lasted for about an hour and a half with many different performances, showing all types of flamenco dancing. You can probably reserve a seat through your hotel.

After the show and dinner, we walked past the Plaza Espagne, which looked beautiful at night. There were a lot of couples there and young people hanging out, so I felt like an idiot, when my brother dared me to run up a fountain's side and I agreed. How can you turn down a dare, especially one that sounds so easy? I was wearing Toms, so there was no traction on my shoes and I ended sliding right down from it. Normally, I can do it though; I promise. We ended up just walking around, but ended up back at our hotel by 12:00AM. That was about it for day six of our adventure.

Spain: Day 6 Part 1

Playing: Heartbeat Slowing Down-The All American Rejects
Reading: How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster

For our sixth day in Spain and our first full day in Madrid, my family and I kind of got tired hunting for inexpensive breakfasts, so we just went to a fast food place called Pans & Company, which was a sandwich and pastry chain. I'm not sure what the name of this is because I just pointed at it and said, "Uno por favor!" I do know that it was a cranberry muffin stuffed with vanilla yogurt though and it was surprisingly good.  The only issue I had with it was that after the first half, it tasted too sweet and too much like a vanilla cupcake.

After breakfast, we walked around and I looked at all the grafitti that was on the buildings. It's surprising how much grafitti was in Spain and how everywhere you look, there's grafitti. It's like your in the seedy parts of Los Angeles...I kind of liked this one though. It looks like me after my AP World teacher announced that we were going to have three more projects after we took the AP test. Either that or a psychotic toad. Not much of a difference to tell you the truth...

When we got to our destination, the Palacio Real, it was thirty minutes before the opening and there was still a line. I was standing behind these two girls, both over six feet, complaining to my mum about how she should've given me growth hormones. The Palacio Royal is a stunner, but it looks just like any other European palace to me. The most unique part of this palace was that we got to take a look in the royal pharmacy, but the armory was so confusing for the audio tour. I had no idea what I was supposed to be looking at. For this, you really should get in line before it opens because when we left, the line was at least two blocks long.

For lunch, it was another one of those times, where I pestered my dad into letting us eat anywhere because the heat was killing me and the walk felt like it was never going to end. We ended up at this little place called Cafeteria Otero, which I really liked because it felt like you were eating in your grandmother's kitchen. I ordered the Filete de ternera con champinion (veal with mushrooms) for only 7€, so this was my cheapest meal in Spain and probably one of the best ones I had. The veal was buttery and tender, while the mushrooms were lemony and full of garlic. Even their French fries were amazingly crisp and salty, which I stole from my family members' plates. You wouldn't have expected this, when you first stepped in because the place was empty, but I definitely recommend it to you. 

After lunch, we walked to the Plaza Mayor and here you can see my lovely parents standing right by the entrance to it. My dad's camera ran out of battery at this plaza, so he took over my camera asking me to take a photo of this and that for him. We both have camera sharing problems, so that's why we needed to get our own. We used to get into fights over it.  Anyways, this particular little entrance had all these cute places to eat and look at.

For example, look at this! How adorable are those giant gummy bears made of well, tiny gummy bears? It reminds me of the time we set fire to gummy bears in chemistry and how my chemistry teacher would always be snacking on them during lectures. Also, these long candy vines looked fun with all their bright colors, but I wasn't quite sure what they were. Are they licorice or what?

In the Plaza Mayor, there were locks attached to all of the lamps, so I'm guessing they serve the same purpose as the ones on Pont de l'Archevêché. It symbolizes couples everlasting love and then they usually toss the locks somewhere. That's what I'm guessing right now, but I could be wrong. If you know of this, let me know if I'm right! Thanks for reading!

PS Today is my last day of SAT prep class, so I'm celebrating by going to an All American Rejects concert with Rebecca!

Spain: Day 5

Playing: Forget My Name-One Night Only
Reading: Elle July 2012

For my last day in Barcelona, I grabbed a ham and cheese sandwich for breakfast at Fresh 101. My family and I kept on returning there because the food was pretty good and fairly inexpensive. We also had to grab sandwiches for out train ride to Madrid too. Since nobody understood English there, I got a chance to practice my limited Spanish by pointing at what I wanted and saying, "Uno por favor!" We ended up just walking around the city for three hours before leaving for the train.

Truthfully, I love train rides and long car rides because I love looking at the scenery. On the train, I pretty much just listened to my new Billy Idol and Killers CD's that I bought and downloaded onto my ipod, while looking at the countryside. I took these photos just a tad before we passed Calatayud, so I'm not sure which city this is. The countryside is so lovely there, since you'll be looking at fields and out of nowhere, and old castle shows up like one from a movie. Very scenic!

For lunch, I had yet another sandwich from Fresh 101. Only this one was a thing baguette with prosciutto and tomato sauce. The bread was a bit dry for me, but the prosciutto was tasty enough for me to forget that and finish it off. I should've bought more for lunch because two hours later, I was starving.

Once we got off the train, we headed down to our hotel, Hotel Atlantico, to drop off all our stuff. Our room was super adorable and they welcomed us with a basket of fresh fruit, which was great, since I was starving by then. The kiwi quickly disappeared, if you get what I'm saying. I loved how large all the rooms in Spain were compared to the ones in other European countries. Ahem, Ireland, I'm talking about you.

We were up on the eighth floor, so we had a spectacular view from our balcony. Our hotel room actually had two balconies, so I would stand out there, people watching. The height freaked out my mum, so she wouldn't go out. I tried tossing something to my dad's room using the balcony and it didn't work out too well...

After we finished unpacking all of our clothes and stuff, we took a cab to the Museu Del Prado, which I kept on accidentally calling the Museu Del Prada. Whoops, my bad. This museum had a huge selection and tons of famous names and way too much to look at, if you wanted to finish it in a few hours. However, it was kind of confusing to get around. We were looking for a bathroom and my family and I got into a fight about it.
Mom: Just ask someone already.
Dad: The sign says it's over here. (The signs were pointing at each other like this: --> <;--, if you looked at different signs. There was no bathroom in between them, though.)
Audrey: Do you really need to go that badly?
Ted: Oh my god. Really guys. You went five minutes ago.
Oh and it gets better. Once we did find the bathroom, we couldn't find an exit, so we rode the escalators for awhile. It looked like we were choreographing Ok Go's next music video. Anyways, it's worth visiting this museum, if you're into art, but I don't think it's worth more than three hours.

 Our dinner was awful that night. I won't tell you the name of the restaurant, since I forgot it, but here's the basics, I ordered Tagliatelle al Funghi and the pasta came out burnt together and had a similar texture to glue. None of my family members had a good dinner either and the restaurant was hot and stuffy, so we were all grumpy by the end and snapping at each other.

To avoid causing further frustration amongst us, we walked off to the Puerta del Sol, which is a huge plaza with a lot of twenty somethings hanging out. It made me wish I was in my twenty somethings that way I could chill with cool European boys. When I'm in my twenty somethings, I'll probably be hanging out with semi-cool American boys. Anyways, I saw a Topshop there and decided to check it out. I wasn't that impressed with it because a lot of the clothing looked like an H&M met Forever 21. However, I left with this very Beetlejuice backpack. (I'm not as obsessed with the movie as I may appear.) I've been wanting a nice backpack other than the typical Jansport that most high school students carry, so I was quite content buying this. Actually, other than a tube of paprika flavored Pringles, this is the only thing I bought there to bring home. There actually wasn't a lot in Spain that I was dying to buy. Have you ever felt that way during a trip before?

Spain: Day 4

Playing: Take My Hand-League
Reading: Harper's Bazaar July 2012

My dad made us wake up extra early to go stand in line for the Museu Picasso, since the day before, we had gone, only to find a line that went on forever and ever. We showed up 45 minutes before opening time and still ended up something like twelfth in line. This is a picture of the line five minutes before opening. I couldn't even see the end of the line. Pretty crazy, huh? This was one of the few art museums from my trip that I think is worth visiting, but definitely get in line early! I suggest having one person wait in line, while another goes and gets breakfast for everyone. That way you have something to munch on in line.

Once we got through the museum, my dad took us to the Parc de la Ciutadella. It's well known mostly for this fountain, which I think depicts the birth of Venus. It took us awhile to figure out what it was, but then my Percy Jackson skills kicked in and I remembered everything. You can see Neptune, Venus, Apollo, and hippocamps on this fountain plus tons of ducks swimming around. The whole park is incredibly beautiful and I highly recommend visiting it during your trip.

For lunch, we found ourselves at a buffet focused on healthy eating. We were actually walking to another museum, but I started to get fussy with my dad and complained to him, "We've been up for five hours already and it's one o'clock! I'm starving and it's freaking hot." So to shut me up, he pointed to two restaurants across the street and said, "Pick your poison." I chose TERRABLAVA because it was the cheaper and cleaner of the two. It actually turned out to be pretty tasty and I recommend eating there, if you're running low on money. For 10€, I got unlimited orange lemon juice, pasta salad, croquettes, potato salad, pasta, chicken wings, roasted veggies, and all sorts of other things. It didn't have a lot of meat, but I didn't mind. The roasted tomatoes were incredible and I wish I saved room in my stomach for more. They even had dessert there, which was all included.

While at TERRABLAVA, we gave up on heading towards the Roman and medieval museums, deciding that we had already seen enough, while we were in Rome. We had to convince my dad to take a cab to Parc Guell, which is on practically every postcard. The taxi ride there was hot and stuffy, but it was worth going to the park. It was another one of Gaudi's creations, so my family and I walked around the park and admired the mosaics. I spent a lot of time people watching and I found this group of cute British guys. You British girls have no idea how lucky you all are to have such good looking men. It seems you have a higher cute guy to girl ratio than I do, where I live. Actually, I think I've mentioned this before, but seriously Europe, why do you get more handsome men?

At Parc Guell, they had a band performing and I decided I want to go to a park with my friends and play music. Since I lack any type of musicality, I shall be the chick with the tambourine that just dances around and lends background harmonies. Sounds good to me. By the way, the girl in this band actually did sing. I'm not trying to make fun of her. Introducing, The Mananers, the only band I know that's "high everyday."

We took a cab back to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, where we had explored the parks earlier that week. Since they were open this day, we decided to go and I got in for free because I'm still considered a minor. A lot of these places offer discounts for students, so bring your student ID with you! I personally didn't like this art museum because it consisted of mostly religious paintings. However, on the second floor, they did have some pretty impressionist paintings, but none of the artists there are well known except for Picasso. I do recommend walking around this area because there's a lot to look at. The Plaza Espanya became my go-to area for whenever we had free time mostly because it was close to our hotel and look at how pretty the MNAC building is!

We went back to Las Ramblas for dinner and this time round, La Boqueria was open, so we went to go check it out. I recommend going earlier on in the day because it was starting to close up, when we went. It was interesting to see all the meats they had there that we don't have in the USA or at least in the USA, they're considered specialty meats such as: goat, rabbits, and some other unidentifiable meats. I was tempted to buy some of the candy there, but I was all out of cash.

For dinner, we just chose a place along Las Ramblas that way I could people watch and look for cute guys. (Man, do I have a brain that's focused on one thing or what?) We ended up eating at Pita House, so I ordered a prosciutto pizza, but I think the rest of the world has a different definition of prosciutto than I do. The meat on this pizza is called ham in the USA, not prosciutto. The pizza was truthfully kind of soggy and bland. I don't recommend it at all. If you're going go try Pita House, go inside the restaurant to the less touristy part and order the Persian food. When I went to use the loo, it smelled so good in the restaurant part! On the bright side, the table next to me had these two really cute guys in colored jeans. I didn't know you could do this, but a man tapped one of them on the shoulder and asked for a cigarette before walking away and one of the guys just gave it to him! I mean really, in the USA, I've never seen a complete stranger bum a smoke off of someone unless they're hitting on the person. If they were flirting, he would've stayed, not walked away, right? Crazy stuff you see out there, right? (I am most certainly overreacting...)

Spain: Day 3 Part 2

Playing: There is a Light That Never Goes Out-The Smiths
Reading: James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

After the Casa Mila, we returned to the area by our hotel and explored the gardens and buildings around the MNAC. I highly suggest walking around in all the gardens surrounding it. You get a great view of the ocean and get to see tons of spectacular buildings. A soccer camp for elementary school age boys was just getting out, so there was a whole rush of boys in bright soccer jerseys running around with parents chasing after them. How cute!

We probably spent a good two to three hours just walking around and people watching, but then we got hungry, so we headed down to Arenas de Barcelona for dinner. It used to be a bull fighting rink, but they transformed it into a modern mall with stores like MANGO, Claire's, Desigual, etc. It was amazing how big it was inside and on the bottom most floor, they had all these places for food. We went to the very top, where the restaurants were for dinner.

This was the amazing view that you got from the top most floor and you got to see this, while eating dinner. Pretty much all of the restaurants would offer you a different, beautiful view. Surprisingly, the food here wasn't as over priced as it was in other parts of town.

We chose La Lola, since it was one of the few restaurants offering Spanish food. It was mostly a tapas restaurants, but you could get sandwiches there too. Up above, you can see the salt cod fritters, breaded baby goat chops from Segovia, Iberian ham shavings, cold tomato soup, and the bread with tomato sauce. The soup was absolutely delicious and my family was fighting over who would get the last bit of it. I won. The Iberian ham shavings was basically prosciutto, but when put on top of the bread with tomato sauce, it was so good.

We also tried the paella, which was only ok. It tasted too much of seafood and the rice was kind of burnt. However, the fried eggplants with honey was amazing. It was cut so thin, it was like a crisp. The honey sauce had a molasses under taste to it, which was surprising. It was so good that we ordered a second batch.

I developed quite the liking for the Spanish tapa called potatas bravas, but at La Lola, they were called the unforgettable bravas. I am a lover of fried potatoes, so topping it with spicy mayo just makes it that much better, so I took delight in chowing down on this.

After dinner, we headed back to the MNAC area to watch the water show that's held nightly from 9:00PM-10:00PM during the summer. We caught a showing towards 10:00PM that was synched with American music from the 1980's, so pretty much, all my favorites. There were a lot of people in their 20's there dancing, drinking, and just pretty much having fun. A lot of gay couples were there dancing and I guess, if you want to find other young people to befriend, this is the area. I became friends with two Americans, while I was there and we talked about which sites we were going to go to next. Then the clock ticked by and somehow it was 11:00PM already and we decided it was time to go back to the hotel, even though none of us were tired.