Feelings.

Holaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Well tomorrow's the big day. Flyin' to Cagliari, Italy to meet Susanna for the weekend! We're staying at the cutest little bed-and-breakfast and are gonna bike to the beach and the city and eat really yummy food. HUZZAH :)

Just another gloriously sunny day in Madrid. I am seriously in love with the sunshine. I've been here almost five weeks and we've only had, like, one rainy weekend. Every day it's blue skies and sunshine. Love it. Today before class, I walked to Plaza de España and just sat by one of the huge fountains, sippin on a fruit smoothie. LIFE IS GOOD, FRIENDS.

Today was the first time I really got frustrated though. I needed to go put minutes on my phone and went back to the place where I bought it. Everything worked out, but it's still so hard for me to understand people and actually formulate coherent responses rather than just staring at them blankly and getting flustered. I went to go buy a gift for Susanna for her birthday and tried to check out in one line and couldn't understand where the lady was telling me to go instead, so I just gave up and left without getting anything (Don't worry, Big. I went elsewhere haha). Then I went to the bookstore to find an easy book to read and a lady asked me a question about the book I was holding and I just had no idea. *sigh* But it will get better. At least that's what everyone is telling me haha Ah well. Practice, practice, practice.

Alright, well I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. You know there's gonna be a ginormous post here on Monday ;)

ESTEBAN IS SO ARTSYYYY.

photo cred: Steven Lewis
Alcázar de Segovia

el fin de semana de bien tiempo!

What a lovely weekend :)

Yesterday: Woke up around noonish and decided to go for a run in El Parque de Oeste, which is a park across the street from my apartment. I am paying for this bit of ambitiousness today as my gluteus maximus and my quadriceps are SCREAMING at me. Ohhhh but it was so gorgeous out. Sunny and about 65F. Everyone was out and about, riding bikes, running, skateboarding. Just lovely weather. I didn't really do much for the rest of the day because I was feeling a bit icky. But overall, very relaxing :)

Today (current temp: 64F): Woke up around 8:30 or so to go get breakfast with Gillian and a her friends Rachel and Kelsey. We went to this place called Chess Cafe, which claimed to have the best orange juice in Madrid.

And oh boy, did they. We had crepes with nutella, eggs, bacon, toast, cafe con leche, and a huge tall glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Everything was so yummy and each of our meals cost just under 5 euro. I love how easy it is to get a meal here for just a few Euro. There's a bar near my university where you can get a good sized hamburger and a caña of beer for 2.50 Euro. Fantastic. So after we'd finished our lovely sunny breakfast, we decided to go to El Rastro again. I was finally able to get a better, birds-eye view of the market. Just so you can see how busy and crowded and awesome it is.

I was a good girl this time and didn't spend any money because I need to save for my little trip to Italy this weekend. But it was still great to walk around and take everything in. THEN Gillian and I went to Museo Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, which was just down the street. Admission to the museum is free on Sundays, so we figured we'd hit it up. We mostly meandered around the modern art exhibits, which included lots of works based on the Spanish civil war in the late 1930s. Lots of propaganda and angsty drawings about the government.

A lot of works by Picasso were there too, including his famous Guernica painting. Pretty cool to think that I was able to see all that. An afternoon well-spent, I'd say.

So now I'm just stuffing my face and contemplating an afternoon siesta. Or homework. Hmmmmm. Bah.


Heyyyyyy Happy Super Bowl Sunday! GO PACKERS!! :)

(I need makeup/sleep/a shower. Egads.)

*waves*

Hi all. Just a quick update, nothing too exciting going on here. Last day of classes for the week and then the weekend, el fin de semana!

Oh but NEXT weekend, my dearest Susanna and I will be off to Cagliari which is on the coast of Sardenia, a small Italian island. Weeeee! So excited. But I told myself I really gotta work on balancing this whole being-a-student-in-such-a-culturally-rich-country deal before I can get too excited. It's getting better though!

Hugs to all! I hope you're enjoying all that snow ;) It's 50 and sunny here!! heehee.

Exploring!

Hi friends. Update on my past weekend:

Saturday: Hung out all day, went and got chocolate con churros with my roommate Gillian, but I think I already told you that.

Sunday (yesterday): Woke up around 10 and went to El Rastro with Gillian and Sari. El Rastro is this HUUUUUGE (and I mean HUUUUGE. Up and down several streets) open market, kind of like a giant flea market/yard sale that takes place every Sunday in Madrid.

You can get all kinds of things for real cheap. Gillian and I both took advantage of the 1 euro scarf sale. I also saw these really neat photographs of the different Metro stops around the city and I plan on trying to find one of the stop right outside my building (Moncloa). There were also all of these cool old cameras and coins and antique-y looking things.

Ah. All so neat. Definitely wanna try to make that a weekly venture. After we poked around there for a while, we got lunch at a nearby bar. I had a bocadillo de chorizo, which is basically a baguette with yummy yummy sausage in between. Then we might've stopped for chocolate con churros again. Maybe. Just sayin.

Today, I had my God-awful 9AM class, which requires me to wake up at 7 and be ready by 8 so I can take the Metro. And it's my only class of the day, so I'm back in the apartment by 11:30. I'm feeling a little under the weather, so I decided to take a nap. When I got up, I went out to find some second-hand clothing stores that I looked up online. I'm a sucker for thrifting, in case you didn't know. The place I chose to go to today was called Humana. It's basically like Spain's version of the Salvation Army stores. And lucky me, I decided to come on the day where everything was just 3 euros each! "Todos las prendas cuestan solamente tres euros cada uno??", I asked the clerk. SI. So I ended up getting a button down man-shirt to layer stuff with and a nice little jacket for when the weather warms up (optimism!).

Much love to all! Can't believe I've already been here two weeks :)

"Sometimes you gotta look yourself in the mirror and say 'When in Rome'..."

Or, in my case, "When in Spain".

And if anyone can tell me where that quote is from, I will give you a dollar. If I have any left upon my return. Heh.

The night before last, my roommates all went out to Kapital (this HUUUGE discoteque - 7 floors!) with the goal of staying out til 6AM (when the Metro opens again) and getting chocolate con churros. Of course, I had class at 9AM the next morning, so I just stayed in.

Welllll LAST night, they embarked on this grand adventure again and this time I tagged along. Yes, ladies and gents. I was out until 5:15AM this morning. We were close to getting chocolate con churros, but my one friend needed to leave and we wanted to go with her. SO CLOSE. But anyway, I slept until about 1PM today and then went to get chocolate con churros with Gillian. So all was not lost. We also did some exploring and found some cool Indian restaurants and a librería café (a bookstore café) and the Museo Reina Sofía. All in all - a great afternoon. And now, nap time!

fewd.

CHOCOLATE CON CHURROS.

PAELLA DE MARISCOS.