la de daa

i knowww im a terrible person for not having updated this in about 5 years, but what can i say...ive been living my life and having a pretty good time and seeing the world, and also, im just bad at keeping blogs. hah.

soooo last week i was in bulgaria. very interesting country. SUCH a difference between east and west europe, i can't even explain. i only spent about 170 dollars the entire week and i went out every night and ate enough food for about 3 normal people (especially any normal bulgarian girl, as they all weigh approximately 100 pounds soaking wet).

I ended up spending the majority of the time at goce's apartment (dorm room?) because mariya was busy or something, and im SO grateful that goce was able to take me in...if not, i would have been on the streets in a country where i don't speak the language and that would have just been lovely.

some interesting things about bulgaria:
- shaking your head means yes and nodding your head means no. i kid you not. how strange is that?? and also, very difficult for me when i dont speak bulgarian and im trying to point out nonverbally which pack of gum i want to the lady working at the convenience store
- "retro" music and hip hop are extremely popular - retro music is anything from the 80s and 90s or even earlier, such as "grease lightning" or "YMCA"
- going out to a bulgarian club consists of finding a table and dancing around the table...you don't just go to a disco to dance on the dance floor, you must first find a table and stand awkwardly around it, too far from anyone to actually have a conversation.
- bulgarian music is called chalga and here is a sample: Jestoko
- everything is so effing cheap: i got a ginormous burger and fries for 2.50 lev which is about 1.70...mmmmmm...however, clothes there are extremely expensive...more expensive than in spain! how does that make sense?
- seatbelts don't exist, basically. which is terrifying seeing as the drivers there are just as crazy if not crazier than those in new york city.
- rakia is the national drink of bulgaria and also the reason i do not remember the first night i was there. at all. that was the first and last time i drank that stuff. think terrible tasting absinthe. uugghhhh


so yeah. in other news, i went to barcelona and it was beautiful and sunny. funny thing about barcelona is they don't speak spanish there, so that was interesting. catalan is very similar to spanish though, so it was possible to get around fine. plus, everyone speaks spanish if you ask them to.

hmm what else...ive just been going to class and living life here...idk what else to say...going out on the weekends, usually and not doing much during the week.

oh, also...there are two other girls living in my house now, which brings the grand total up to 4 exchange students...i think it's a bit too much for the apartment. i mean, theyre nice girls, that's not the problem at all...but we're all living in this one apartment with one bathroom and no space really. i pretty much stay in my room anyway when im home because that's the only real place to be, but whatever.

right now i am absolutely drowning in work because i haven't really done anything all semester, i mean, it's my fault BUT it sucks so im actually updating my blog to procrastinate just a bit more. maybe i'll go for a run too...anything to avoid this 8 page paper and reading this awful book and doing my immigrant experience presentation. AH

Stuff

Soo i went to carnaval and Portugal and blah blah i'm too vaga to write about it all...if you want to know more look at my pics on fb or ask me! 

i know i haven't been the best with this blog thing, but im turning over a new leaf! i will update religiously from now on!

today i had a midterm.  it sucked. im not sure how i did. maybe a B? too bad it's 40% of my grade. ugh.  immigrant experience = hardest class offered in this program, but whatever, im learning and its legit.

tonight i think we're gonna go out and see malasaña...something different than sol for once.  AND it's where all the cool alt kids go, so im sure ill love it.  here are some of the bars there: 

WoooO!

if y'all ever come visit me in España, this is where we'll be going.  i've already gone to tupperware and it was awesome!

im super tired though. and i have to be ready by 820 to get to principe pio by 9 so we can go 3.5 hours to this winery place where we WONT BE DRINKING ANY WINE even though its a vineyard (i have a hard time believing maricarmen will be able to enforce this policy, but we'll see), and then we're going to this monastery place where they do all these gregorian chants and then we're going to get a wonderful traditional castilian dinner in this middle of nowhere tiny town.  so it should be fun. but cold! ahh! so cold here...i mean, like 40s but still! lots of wind!

and today, it was insane, there was the most ridiculous HAIL storm..like giant balls of hail and so many falling for so long....intense shit.

Speaking of intense: Watch This Now!

baaah i guess i should get ready if i want to go out tonight, but im sooo lazyyyyyy

Miss and Love

List time!

Things I Miss:
- BAGELS
- CHIPOTLE
- living with people my own age/sola
- dollars
- not having to be an electricity/water nazi, although I guess it´s good anyway
- feeling productive
- having a normal appetite
- lean protein
- not oily vegetables
- greek yogurt and honey
- not ham and/or chorizo 24/7
- ice creammmmmmmmmmmm thats not crazy expensive
- centennial, especially rooms 212 and 214
- house parties
- TDR (i know, i know, but you would too!)
- walking around barefoot in my own house
- central heating
- cereal variety (reeses puffs, lucky charms, frosted flakes, CINNAMON LIFE, cinnamon toast crunch, etc)
- soup!!
- REESES AND ANYTHING PEANUT BUTTERY
- normal coffee...sooo over espresso!

- dryers!  oh mannnnnn

Things I Love Here:

- the language
- nightlife (OMG...except enough with the techno all the time, please)

1) El Tigre

2) La Alhambra

3) Kapital, Pacha, Samsara, etc etc though every week is a bit much for me

4) El Son!

5) the goat! haha jk
- cheapppp wine.  You can buy a glass bottle in the supermarket for 1.75 euro
- chocolate covered waffles (qé gofre, in particular...oh my god best thing ever)

- tapas! mmmm patatas bravas and french fries and ham and cheese on bread and etc etc

- croquetas!
- not having barely any responsibility, haha

- meeting new people
- cheap taxis
- CHEAPEST WATER EVER...like, 30 cents a bottle! for a liter and a half! woooo
- maricarmen and all the crew at mosaic <3 

- being able to travel to like 1023821 different countries for around 30 euro

- cañas

- being one stop away from school...although that also means being really far from el centro, but you win some, you lose some

- monthly metro/bus/buho passes...and being able to buy the 29 euro one! first time im happy im under 21 hahaaa

- being legal 

- having my own room....to a certain extent...maybe if i actually had privacy and a non-invasive host mom to go along with it, i'd be happier, but what can you do.

- the weather! soo nice

Things I Will Probably Never Understand About Spanish Culture:

- harem pants. WTF

1) WHY did these ever become popular? I have even seen denim versions! 

2) Are people trying to make themselves look as awkward/fat as they possibly can??

- Rat tails.

1) Please, really? Didn't we see enough of these things in the 90's? I'm not even kidding, this is quite a common 'do here.

- HAM 24/7

1) No, but really.  This is quite common. First, you go to museo del jamon (Not even kidding, there are tons of these in Madrid, and they are CHOCK FULL of ham legs hanging from floor to ceiling, as well as every other form of ham imaginable.  It's really a sight to see) to get your tasty ham leg, then you put it on your jamonero (yes, a ham stand specially made to fit this purpose), and then you slice away for weeks until you have finished your lovely jamon iberico.  Ugh

- How people can live at home til they're 30-35.  I would probably die.  No, really.  And i thought i wasn't gonna make it to 18.

- BANGS! such intense bangs everywhere!

- ridiculous PDA everywhere.  even in the metro.  AND don't even get me started on the parks.  Sex in broad daylight in a public place, anyone?  This is not uncommon, and it's usually far worse, but i googled this image, and would have felt creepy posting anything more intense:

- As with Latin America, the time.  If you SAY a time, why be 2 hours late?

- Eating dinner at 10pm.  mmmm.

- how everyone is in such good shape here and yet they eat so much! i guess all the walking? i want the secret!

SOOO i gotta start (soo late, i know) studying for my midterm tomorrow.  i'm actually a bit scared for it, im not gonna lie.  its def my hardest class, and i dont understand a word of the readings! ahh! im totally getting C...please god, noooooo.

To do list:

- finish application for next semester!

- plan Denmark/Finland trip for the end of this semester

- figure out if im gonna be home for Nora's wedding

- STUDYYYYY

- do something fun this weekend that does not eat up my wallet

- talk to people.  if you're reading this and you know i'd want to talk to you...TALK TO MEEEEEE

Morriña

This, combined with an overwhelming feeling of laziness, is why I have not been updating my blog lately. 

Saudade. Look in the section "Variations"

En Español

Woop.  Im going to buy a hair straightener now. And some mouthwash. Love life.

oh hey there

I would've updated more this week, believe me, I had the time, but they would have been the most useless, boring posts ever. Why, you ask? Because i've done absolutely nothing. Well, up until last night. I got sick this week, so my host mom has had me on steady dosages of jarabe and other random drugs, and i've pretty much just felt shitty. I was supposed to go out thursday night - i even had clothes on and everything - but i just couldn't. i went to bed at 9pm and woke up at 11am. 14 hours of sleep. too much. i felt even shittier when i woke up, haha.

Friday i went to Chueca and Sol with Charly and we bought boots! yay - mine are so hot. perfect for going out. because, let's be honest, me and stilettos don't mix very well. so yeah, boots with a heel are a good compromise, cause they're hot but i'll still be alive at the end of the night.

So we went all around sol and the surrounding area yesterday, and then i got home and took a nap! <3 naps...i take one a day at least, haha.

After my lovely nap, i got ready to go out and we went to this cool bar called tupperware, and get this: I HEARD TIME TO PRETEND BY MGMT IN THE BAR!! i freaked out, haha. and then i made natalie come with me to the stairs so we could hear it better cause they were playing it downstairs and we were sitting upstairs. but yeah, it was a really chill bar with AWESOME music!

We were there for a while, and then walked all the way to El Tigre in the freezing cold. We walked by Pacha, which is this club we were originally going to go to, but it costs 16 euro to get in, and we are cheap mothafuckas. plus, jana and natalie's intercambio apparently has connections there, so if we go next week, he'll be able to get us in for free =). i like it, i like it a lot. So yeah we went to El Tigre and got massive mojitos (they are the best...so big and only 6 euro and sooo gooood), but then we talked the promoter dudes from joy and they were like "if you want to get in free, you have to leave NOW." That meant that we had to finish our mojitos in like 5 minutes, which was...interesting. it sped the night up, to say the least, haha.

We got to joy, claimed to be on this random dude's guestlist from eurovibe (maybe steve??...idk) and ended up getting in fine. so that was nice. after that, we just danced up the evening til around 5, when we had had enough. Charly and i left, thinking no one else was there anymore (originally me, charly, rachel, natalie, jana, kim, dana, and kate had come, but i think they all left at some point before us...it was a packed club, thus it was nearly impossible to keep track of such a large group!), and we went to cafe y te to wait out the metro.

BUT THEN cafe y te was closed! alas! we were so tired, we went to the street right by cafe y te to wait for it to open, and just plunked ourselves down on the street in front of a closed dunkin coffee. Rachel and some Greek dude met up with us there, and then this random from Tangiers latched on to our group and would NOT leave us alone. He went with us to Cafe y Te and insisted on taking multiple pictures with us. When we left Cafe y Te, he attempted to follow us into the metro, but we booked it as soon as we got through the barrier, and lost him! haha...good work, charly.

i got home around 630-7, as usual, and went to bed. My host mom woke me up today with some coffee and codeine...i think that's what it is? it's OTC, but she asked me if i was allergic to codeine. and the drugs here are SOO much stronger than those in the US. classic. she's convinced im dying, i think...but it's okay..cause she's super nice, and although she can be a bit overwhelming, i know she's just worried and making sure im okay.

So today, saturday, i gotta read this EU stuff and do some other homework. Also, i must shower. ew. so lazy. i guess i'll get on that, cause it will probably take me a good half hour to get myself out of bed and moving. haha. SEE ya!

lolz

heeehe this is my kind of rap:

fa sho

No me gustan los lunes

bah what a useless day.

i had class for an hour and half, went to the store and bought all sorts of ridiculously unhealthy food (ham flavored chips anyone?), and have spent the rest of the day in front of the computer and/or sleeping.  i didn't even do any of the work i had told myself i would get done.  ohwell.

i am addicted to celebrity gossip.  and facebook.  it's official.

New Garamond, Sol Round II, Flamenco, Museo de Traje, Toledo, La Sala, Walden Uno

Oh lord. I know i haven't updated this in a while, but man oh man.

WARNING: this is a very long post.

Wednesday

Charly, Lena and I went out with some club promoters we had met the weekend before. They brought us to this really nice club named New Garamond. It would have been nice, except there were a few problems: we met up in Sol, which is about 45 minutes from where Lena and I live. We thought the club was in sol, and that's why we agreed to meet there. So we get there and Brian and Jon are like, alright we have to go to Cuzco (which is SO CLOSE to where we live). So we ended up going all the way to Sol and back. Boo. Next, we got to New Garamond after walking around aimlessly for approximately 30 minutes (because im telling you, this club is not near anything...no metro, no obvious landmarks, no nothing) until we find the club. So we get there only to find out Lena didn't bring her ID. Now, in Spain this is not usually an issue, because wherever you go, they pretty much always let you in. Only, tonight of course, the doormen decide to be real douches and deny us entrance because she doesn't have an ID. They weren't even going to let Charly in, and she had a copy of her passport! they were like..."sorry, a copy won't work, we need the real passport". Who the HELL is going to bring their actual passport to a nightclub?? Honestly, that's the dumbest idea ever.

Soo...we come up with a plan. Lena doesn't feel well, so she decides she wants to go home. Since it's so close, we decide that we'll get Lena's license and Charly can use it to get in to the club. Charly lives far away, so for her to go home, it would be quite difficult. Let me reiterate...Charly is 21 years old, had a copy of her real and legal passport, and is reduced by pure desperation to having to use Lena's driver's license! How ridiculous! Also, by this point it's like 2am so i'm getting tired because we haven't done anything yet, and i'm also so bored. I forgot to say that when we were coming back from Sol, the metro took seriously like 20 minutes to get to the stop we were waiting at. Don't ask me why, but yeah. bad luck.

After we leave Lena at home, we go back to New Garamond, because we've come so far, it would be so unfulfilling to just go back home after all this. Also, it costs like 15-30 euros to get in New Garamond, depending on the night, so Charly and I figured that this is a good opportunity to see if this place is actually worth it, since we were getting in for free. So FINALLY we get into this club (they actually let Charly get in with someone else's license but not her own passport! AGH) and we ended up having a pretty good time, mostly because there were random waiters walking around handing out free shots, and the music was pretty good. But yeah, what an unnecessarily hard evening.

***********************************************

Thursday a bunch of us met up with Andres, Jose, Sergio and some others in Sol. Andres and Jose are in Walden Uno, this band we randomly saw in McGinty's Goat a week or so ago. After everyone got there, there were about 10 of us plus the 5 guys we met up with. Big group, but so much fun. We went to Alhambra again, and were all probably obnoxiously loud and boisterous, but who cares. After a few hours in Alhambra, we decide to go to another place. Andres' friend owns it, and he said they had great mojitos, so we went to check it out. However, on the way there, we came across this promoter dude for another small bar. He was offering out free drinks, so obviously we took advantage of that and stopped by for a few minutes. I have no idea what the club was named, but there was great music, so we stayed for a bit longer.

**random aside: I have heard this seriously every time i have gone out here. Thursday night was no exception. It's so catchy omg.**

After taking full advantage of the situation, we finally go to the other bar where Andres' friend works and have a great time attempting to dance Flamenco and Salsa and whatnot. At about 4am everyone was so tired, so we wanted to go find the buhos and crash but ended up having another mini adventure, because Andres' friend wanted to hang out and said he would pay for our cab home if we came for a few minutes to his house. At this point, me, Amanda, and Tess are the only ones left standing, so we go to this dude's house and hang out for a bit. Bah we were all so tired. Por fin we get a cab and go home, but it ended up being 40 EUROS what the hellllll. the stupid taxi driver obviously took advantage of us. >:0

*************************************************

Friday:

We woke up early (well, relatively, since we don't have classes and we had been out SO LATE the night before) and all convened at the Museo de Traje, which is actually a pretty cool place but i was so not in the mood for a museum. It has all these pretty outfits that famous people and royalty owned dating back to medieval times. I went through the entire exhibit in about 10 minutes and then went home. Haha. I'm terrible, i know.

I took a much needed power nap.

After descansando, i went to meet up with our group again. we all met up with Maricarmen and went to a flamenco class! haaa what a joke; we were all hilarious. It was really fun though! The only thing is flamenco kills your feet because you have to stamp so hard all the time. We did circle dances and gypsy moves and everything. Good times. It was a pretty intense workout, and afterwards we were all sweaty and gross.

For all our hard work dancing flamenco, Maricarmen took us out for pintxos (pronounced pinchos) and cider as a treat. Pintxos are basically just tapas, but the place we went was soooo goooood. Oh man. The cider was pretty good, too. After we all said our goodbyes, I went home and did NOT go out, and had a much needed night in. It was divine.

***********************************************

Saturday - Longest Day

Saturday During the Day

I woke up at 8am to get ready and get to the bus station. We went to Toledo, and our bus left at 1030. the bus station was pretty far away, so I met up with Lena at 930 and we took the metro together to the station. Toledo is about an hour away from Madrid, and it is an absolutely beautiful city. It has a lot of history, because apparently before the Inquisition and all that craziness, Jews, Muslims, and Christians all lived peacefully in this town together. There are still some mosques and synagogues intact, but all of them have had to be reconstructed, because they were all torn down in the past.

All the streets are cobblestone, and there are soo many steep inclines. Honestly, if I lived in that city, i would probably be in perfect shape. The streets are all so narrow, and there are lots of little stores and boutiques mixed in with old cathedrals and monuments. It's so jarring to see a McDonalds or a Lacoste store in the midst of things that are so ancient.

We were only in Toledo for a day, but it was great. It would have been nicer if it hadn't been so windy, but at least it was sunny! Our tour guide, Jose, was the cutest thing ever. Oh man I felt so bad because when we went to Salamanca, he was there too, but none of us knew that he was a tour guide because he barely said a word, so I think Maricarmen must have said something to him, because when we got to Toledo he was trying so hard! He was even studying notes on the bus. Breaks my heart.

Also, fun story: Amanda and Charly got into a fight with this waiter at a restaurant/cafe because we had gone in there and I wanted a coffee so we all sat down. We also met up with Kim and Meredith, so there were 6 of us. Since I got a coffee, and Meredith and Kim had ordered something too, half of us were eating and half of us were not. So this waiter comes over and is like "you guys have to leave if you're not ordering aything" and that started it. They went back and forth for about 5 minutes. It was so bad, i just gulped down my coffee and we all left. Charly ended the convo with "tu eres el peor, y muy feo!" HAHA classic. We left and found a much nicer cafe where the lady was very nice and we ordered ice cream. yummmm.

After some more touring of various cathedrals and mosques and everything, we went home. It was about 6, and we got home around 7. This gave me about 2 hours to get ready to go out.

Saturday Night

***I talked to Mariya on skype for about an hour! Yay! i think i'm definitely going to Bulgaria for spring break now! it's probably going to cost 170-180 euros for the flight round trip, so that's awesome!***

Anyways, Saturday night. Dios mio. We decided we were going to the Walden Uno concert, so I met up with Rachel, Lena, Tara, Dana, Laura, and Meredith at 10 or so and had to go SO FAR to the metro stop Eugenia de Montijo. Here is a map of the metro system in Madrid. I live nearest to the Colombia stop, which is on the pink and purple lines. This means, in order to get to the show, we had to go from Colombia to Nuevos Ministerios, switch to the blue line, go two stops to Alonso Martinez, switch to the light green line, go FOURTEEN stops to Eugenia de Montijo. Fue mucho. Pero valió la pena! We got to La Sala, which is where the concert was, at about 11. We caught the last 3 or 4 songs of the band that was on right before Walden Uno. They were called Superamy, and were basically your standar pop/punk band. They were good, don't get me wrong. Here is a clip from their show:

At around 11:45 Walden Uno came on, and it was such a good show! people were going crazy by the end! Here are a few clips from their performance:










So after the show we stayed around in the club for a while dancing and everything, but it was sooo smoky i couldnt even handle it. My throat was muy sore and i smelled terrrible - like one giant cigarette. People told me that when i came to spain i would become a smoker, because everyone here smokes. But i think that being in a country where there is so much smoke everywhere has actually turned me off even more so to the habit. Seriously, i don't have a problem with people who smoke. No problem at all. But when you are in a small, closed space, the smoke is soo thick and its so hard to breathe and it's not fun. It's even worse if you are dancing. I can't wait to go out in the US and be able to breathe! =)

Mmm so later on in the evening we went to another bar (i wanna say the name was Bambalú?). It was sooo0o0o0o frio outside i was dying. It actually snowed today, so i guess that's why Madrid was a fucking windy ice tundra last night. I had a warm jacket but still. No good. It was about 4 in the morning and the metro opens up at 6am so I wanted to stay the extra few hours and save like 20 euro by taking the metro instead of a cab. By this time, it's only me and Rachel and Andres, and Rachel decided to leave at 5:30 to take a cab (only half an hour more and she could've saved mad $$ but oh well!). Thankfully, Andres stayed and we just hung out in the club until it closed. I got home at about 7am. I woke up at 3 this afternoon.

****************************************

Sunday

I haven't done shit. It snowed about half an inch and the whole town shut down (it's all over the news too: WARNING! DANGEROUS TRAFFIC CONDITIONS!), so i've been chilling at home eating reeses pieces - i brought them from the US....mmmmmmm - and writing and catching up on my homework.

Margarita and I were supposed to go to El Rastro, which is a nice, cheap outdoor market where you can buy things like scarves and mementos and everything, but since it's snowing, that was obviously canceled.

More random updates:

**I have been trying to find a paint-esque application on my Mac...does anyone (BLAIRE) know if Macs come with something like it? i want to edit some photos, but i can't find anything to do it with.

**in Spain, Caña means beer, which i think is funny because in Chile caña means hangover. The direct translation is either a. gray hair b. reed/sugarcane c. rod, so that's silly.

**I have been keeping my room meticulously clean because my host mom is a Drill Sargent when it comes to it. Anyone who knows me will know this is quite the accomplishment.

**I have a lot of homework! so much reading and a 10 minute presentation!....i need to do it all today, because i have not done anything productive regarding la universidad this fin de semana. but i had a good time!


That's it for now. Hearts.

So i was watching tv this morning, and came across this tv show that's called "Aprende Inglés!" which is probably the funniest/coolest thing i've ever seen.  It's this dude who just talks about random shit, but in really slow, overly-pronounced english.  When i got to the channel, he was talking about how Chinese and some languages in Africa are to.nal. lang.uage.s. so. that. when. you. say. a. word in. a. high.er. tone. it. is. diff.er.ent. than. the. same. word. in. a. low.er. tone.  oh man so great.  He also has guests that come on and chat to liven things up.  I wish we had shit like that in the US! I would watch that in Portuguese or Italian or French or German or anything! 

 

On another note, I really like this song a lot right now, even though it's totally lame.  heehee.

 

So random updates:

 

1) I went shopping yesterday at H&M and this store called Sfera.  The only bummer is that all the prices in H&M are exactly the same but in euros! so it's like 1.3 times the amount I would pay in the US.  I bought this awesome dress that was 50% off though cause i saw it full price at the H&M in Chinatown and i figured it was worth it =).  

 

2) I put 15 euros on my phone here (the program gave us one to use while in España) and i ended up with 21.16 euros as my balance! that means whoever used my phone before me obviously left some money on it! wooo yay lucky

 

3) I don't have class until 4pm on Tuesdays, so i have absolutely nothing to do before then.  Rachel and I might meet up though? She's probably not awake yet, though.

 

4) I'm still addicted to perezhilton and gofugyourself.

 

5) I am DYING for a cup of normal coffee.  All the coffee here is like espresso.  There are starbucks and dunkin donuts (although it's called dunkin coffee here for whatever reason) around, but one cup of regular black coffee costs €2.20 which is almost 3 dollars! Craziness.

 

6) Since I've been here, talking to random peeps, I have been told I have an Argentine, Puerto Rican, Colombian, Ecuadorian, and Chilean accent.  These accents are all very different, and I'm not sure how one person can sound like all of these.  The conclusion I have come to is people here are not up on their latin american accents.  I was talking to one guy about how everyone says different things, and he's like "Well, in English it's like if you say someone has a Scottish or British or Australian accent....you can't tell really the difference between each of those!" and i was like "...yes, yes you can..."

 

7) I think i'm going to Bulgaria for spring break! and maybe paris for Valentine's Day! I still need to figure out when I'm going to Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Amsterdam, etc etc and if I even have enough money to go all these places (most likely not).

 

8) Pictures!

 I dont know why the last one is so small, but whatever.  The first picture is us at approximately 630 am after a night of clubbing.  That truck was coming up right behind us and we had no idea.  It honked when it was about half a foot away from us and we all nearly died of a heart attack.  The tiny picture is myself and tess breaking it down in Salamanca.  I am absolutely ecstatic for whatever reason, but yeah good times!

Salamanca! and Joy! and El tigre!

SALAMANCA

Whew. I have barely left my room all day, due to the complete exhaustion I am feeling at the moment.  Friday we left for Salamanca, which is 3 hours away by bus.  The night before some of us went out to a few clubs in Sol, and I ended up getting home around 530.  Not smart.  Nothing really eventful that night except some good dancing and my feet were TORN APART by my heels.  I think i broke my little toe on my left foot, but who knows.

Sooo anyway Friday when we left for Salamanca I was a little tired.  We got to the hotel and immediately walked over to the cathedral and some other noteworthy buildings.  Theres a really beautiful bridge that was built god knows how long ago by the Romans that we had to cross to get into the main part of the city.  It's really weird coming from the US where everything is relatively new and seeing things that are so ancient still in use.  

So we went around and did the whole touristy thing (pics are on facebook), and then went out to dinner as a group.  After dinner (and a few glasses of sangria) we walked around trying to find the Salamancan nighttime district.  Mind you, it was around 1030 at night and we're walking around and there's NOTHING.  So finally we find a club that seems to have a lot of people in it, only to realize that it's some 16 year olds birthday party!  We walked around for at least an hour until we came across this promoter for a club called Atahualpa.  It was a foreigners club or whatever so all the music was in English (bummer) but it was still fun and it only cost 3.50 to get in with an open bar until 2am! So that was nice.  There were probably around 8 of us there, and then we met some Mexicans that really wanted to go to a salsa club (named "El sabor" haha), so we all left to go there.  At this point, it's like 3:30 in the morning.  After going out alllll week I am dead tired.  Buut i decide to stay a little while in the salsa club anyway.  It was fun except I suck at dancing salsa and as such made a fool of myself.  I liked the atmosphere though and the Mexicans we met were super nice.  

Finally at 430 we went home and I crashed immediately.

The next day we got up bright and early (1030ish) and did more of the touristy thing.  We went to the top of the cathedral in town where there is an absolutely spectacular view of the city of Salamanca.  If it hadn't been so effing windy, it would have been a lot more fun, but it was still awesome.  

I really enjoyed the few days we spent in Salamanca, but a few other girls had some bad run ins with the Salamancans.  Although I did like the town a lot, I prefer Madrid and am so happy I am studying in this city.  It's slightly warmer, the neighborhood I live in is extremely safe, the city never sleeps, and the shopping is cheaper!  

SATURDAY NIGHT AKA ABSOLUTE CRAZINESS

So when we got back from Salamanca, I slept for a good 2 hours, and then met the girl that is living in Margarita's house with me.  Her name is Jamie and she's from the Washington University of St. Louis.  She's very nice, and she just left today to go to Ireland so me and Margarita are alone again in the apartment.  Anyways, we had all decided that going out on Saturday night was absolutely necessary (duh), so even though I hadn't gotten any amount of sleep in the past few days I had to suck it up and get ready to go out! Haha, my life is so hard.

We all met at 1130 at El Tigre, which is a tapas bar that is usually so full of people you can't even see your feet.  Seriously, though, it takes a good 15 minutes to get from the door to the back of the bar and it's tiny.  We were there for about an hour and then decided to go because a. everyone was really hot and sweaty b. the drinks were kind of expensive and c. there were so many of us that it was nearly impossible to have any sort of group conversation.

Our next stop was some bar near Sol whose name I seem to have forgotten.  It was a really cool atmosphere, and the music was really good (el canto - or gato ;-) - de loco-esque).  We made friends kind of with the bartender and somehow I got out of paying for my beer there, haha.  Flirting can get you far in this country ;-).

We left that bar around 2-230.  It was time to find a discoteca! We had met some nice peeps at the previous bar that told us about this one place called Joy, so we set off to find it.  Then, the best thing ever happened.  Right as we're about to get into Joy, this one girl corners me and is like..heyyy do you and your friends want to get on my guest list for Joy? You can get in free!...so i was like of course!!!  So we ended up getting into a place that would have costed each of us 15 euro absolutely free! See, mom? I am making economical choices here after all, haha.

We danced for 4 hours.

OMG leaving that place I was soaking and tired but soo happy I love dancing! And it was great with all the girls there! We met people from all over...England, New Jersey, Puerto Rico!  There are some disgustingly sweaty photos from that night, but I'm glad it was documented.  

After we left the club, we decided to get some food.  At this point it was like 630 or so. We went to some random food place which was PACKED (I swear, this city doesn't sleep! 630 isn't even a weird time to still be up!).  We were at that place til 730, met some dominicans, venezuelans, and one brazilian, and then FINALLY went home to sleep.  Today I woke up at 230 for an hour and then again at 745.  Oh man.  I haven't left the house.  But yeah much needed chill day for me.

  

P.S. in case you haven't seen it:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28753038/displaymode/1107/s/2/framenumber/10/

heh heh.

Craziest Week

Oh man, so tons has been going on, as i'm sure you could probably guess, but i am having such a great time here i dont even care that im getting like 5 hours of sleep a night!

On monday, Lena, Tess and I decided to go out and see if there was anything near our area going on at night. Randomly, we came across this Irish Pub. We got there at like 1130 and just missed the band that was playing there, which kind of sucked, but since everyone who was at the bar left with band, we got to know the manager pretty well. His name is Nico and he's from Romania. Anyways, the next night we got a bunch of other girls to go out to the same place and we went to see the band playing that night (its a pretty cool place, actually, free live music every day). There were 10 of us and that was basically the entire audience in the bar (cause honestly, who goes out on a tuesday night unless a. you go to american or b. you're abroad).

The band was fun and we were dancing like locas and everyone had a great time. The next day was not as fun. I decided to walk to school because it's only a mile and a half and that way i can get to know my surrounding area while also getting some exercise. I woke up at 745 and was absolutely dead tired, but it was the first day of classes, so yeah.

The next night we went to the SAME irish pub and at this point i feel so obvious because there's seriously NO ONE else in this entire bar and we are coming every night haha. But this night we got to meet the other bartender, who's cuban and named Jorge. The same band, Walden Uno, played again that night, and since we had told them we were coming back again, they prepared some english songs for us. So cute. After their concert we chatted with the singer for a while, who it turns out is a very nice guy named Andres and he promised us that he would take us out and show us Madrid, since none of us know a n y t h i n g about this city we're staying in. I'm so glad we met people from Madrid! Yay!

Today we went to the Prado, and saw some crazy famous pieces of art like Las Meninas and some of Goya's pieces from the Inquisition. It was fun, but i was so tired that when our tour ended i went right home to take a 3 hour nap, haha. It was much needed and now i feel muy better...ready to go out again tonight! hah. No but really, i think we're gonna go to some clubs in puerta del sol, which is a part of Madrid that has a lot of "ambiente de noche" (nightlife).

On another note, as I'm sure you all know, I was in the paper and on MSNBC! Wooo, exciting. We were watching Obama from a hotel on La Castellana - I don't remember what it was called, but it was very nice. Democrats Abroad had organized the event and there was live music and a big projector to watch everything. Fun fun. So yeah that was unexpected but pretty cool.

Oh, so I realized I didn't write anything about the actual program here, which is studying and not going out every night, haha. We had our first classes yesterday and I had "The immigrant experience" and "Spain and the EU". They both seem like they're gonna be fun...the professors are nice and in my immigrant experience class there's only four other people, so it's pretty much one on one learning.

Alright, well that's it for now!

First Days

So I´ve been in Spain for a little over 24 hours. I got in yesterday after changing flights in Copenhagen and proceeded to get lost in the airport for about an hour. That was lovely. Seriously, though...my flight left out of a different gate than the one they posted my flight to on the monitors, so Maricarmen and Elena were waiting for me somewhere else as I walked around completely lost with no money, phone, or way to contact anyone. Oh, my luck.

Anyways, after about an hour of aimless walking, they found me, and we drove to a hotel in Madrid where all of us students stayed for a night. At that point, I was pretty much a zombie (not having slept in god knows how long). After all the students got to the hotel, we went on a 2 hour walking tour of the surrounding area, followed by a 234788 course dinner (spanish tortillas, fish, bread and cheese, eclairs and flan, and mucha sangria!) that started at 9 and went till 11 or so. Needless to say, at the end of the day i was absolutely exhausted and went right to bed.

Today I met the lady I´ll be living with - Margarita. It´s a lot different than I expected...she lives alone and has like 3 or 4 students stay with her each semester, so it´s not like a homestay with a family per se, but shes really funny and nice and chill about me going out at night. this is like her third year doing this homestay thing so at this point she´s pretty much got college students figured out.

So as of now I´m just unpacking and getting settled in. Tomorrow I´ll go to the building where we´ll have our classes, and hopefully i´ll figure something out about my internship because i´m still totally in the dark regarding that.

One of these days I´ll post some pictures. i have an absolutely spectacular view of the Madrid skyline from the apartment i´m staying in. It´s on the 1oth floor, so i can see lots of buildings and parks and people and everything. As for now, I´m gonna get my room in order and try for the 500th time to connect my computer to the internet (right now i´m using margarita´s which is in her bedroom, so i kind of feel bad).


See yaaa