Wednesday, May 16 -- Day 4

**On Wednesday, we had a nice, rather slow-paced day that was split between an early morning introduction of Madrid and then some free time to explore the heavily-populated capitol of Spain.

-We began the day with Juan, our beloved tour guide, showing us certain points in Madri. As Juan was providing a detailed tour of the beautiful city, we were soaking up the impressiveness of Madrid and its people. The tour eventually stopped and we all had the awesome opportunity to tour Retiro’s Garden, which is widely renowned as one of Madrid’s most beautiful sites.

-Retiro’s Garden, which is bustling with fitness-minded and adventurous Spaniards, was quite the refreshing breeze after touring the busy and urbanized Madrid. Of all the beautiful sites within this lovely park, none were more impressive than the Crystal Palace. Though rather hot inside the greenhouse-like crystal structure, one could easily understand why this palace formerly housed a variety of flora from around the entire world! Now it’s utilized as an impressive point within the park, the structure of the palace is quite amazing. 

-After our morning and afternoon tour of Madrid, all of us had the opportunity to roam around Madrid on our own accord – in groups, of course. Seeing the plazas, monuments, and Madrid population was truly a sight to behold. We saw monuments like that of Christopher Columbus, who happens to be a native Italian who was commissioned by Spanish royalty to find the “new world”.