Un domingo en España

(Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, Spain)

Last night, a bunch of BC kids (and I) went to a party at a Spaniard's house right off the Puerta del Sol.  It was a really nice apartment and it was filled with lovely Spanish boys.  But of course, as per usual in Madrid, they were drinking.  Sidenote: since being in Madrid, I've been trying to widen my horizons by taking a sip of the drinks people give me (that's an awkward sentence - I don't mean just anybody, only trustworthy non-drunk people.  Also, this adds up to about two sips a night).  But they were all drinking this nasty stuff - I don't even know what it was.  They opened the bottle and that stuff smelled awful!  So I gave my drink to the guy next to me, who was really pleased with the situation.  I've only tried one drink I've liked - some cherry something with vodka, but after one sip, I gave that one away as a matter of principle.  Now that you've heard that saga. . .

The plan had been to go to the discotheque, El Capital, but we had a ticket to get into Joy for free, so we ended up going there again.  Half the group left after a while to go to El Capital, but you had to pay to get in there, and I figured that since I am a poor college student, that was unnecessary.  So Lizzie, Elisha, Kevin, and I stayed at Joy.  Pretty much the same as last night, except that they had two flamenco shows during the night, which were pretty nifty.  Also, it was much more crowded this time around and there were a lot more creepers.  But seeing as we don't know how to use the night-buses, we stayed until 6 am so that we could take the metro.  It takes a while for me to get home, so I probably didn't fall asleep until about 7:30 am.

Today I woke up at 2 pm, in time for lunch, and afterwards, Lizzie and I decided to go out exploring.  We went to El Prado, because it's free on Sundays, and walked around El Paseo del Prado, a main street in Madrid.  El Prado was really fantastic - the place is huge and there is a lot of famous artists featured there (you probably knew that already).  We only stayed for a little while, because we had errands to run and needed to be back to our homes for dinner, but even what we saw in such a short amount of time was impressive.  We then went to El Corte Ingles to buy school supplies and snacks.  I bought some delectable tea cookies called Marbú Dorada and chocolate candies called Maltesers.  But what's really exciting (well, to a nerd like me) is that notebooks are different here!  The standard paper they use in Europe is a different size than in the US, so the notebooks are a different size, too.  Also, the paper is what we know as graph paper and they don't use just regular old lined paper.  Needless to say I'm pretty excited to start taking some notes!

I headed back to Julia's for dinner at about 9 pm and her English-speaking niece, Alexandra, joined us for dinner (croquettes and salad).  Julia kept telling Alexandra to speak to me in only Spanish, so what I did catch was that tomorrow, she's going to start looking for a job (the unemployment rate in Spain is about 18% right now).  Alexandra also said that she plays the piano, which is cool, and she said that we can go to some concerts together.

So that ended my whirlwind of a weekend!  Today was the last day of summer vacation, because classes start tomorrow.  And while I'm not excited about the homework that will be forced upon me, I'm glad I will be taking Spanish again, because that will help me improve.  Plus, there's been talk of Spaniards at this school, so that puts a pleasant haze on things. . .