La Tormenta de Viento

(A giant squid at El Museo de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, Spain)

I woke up this morning to what I thought was a hurricane knocking down Julia's building. The storm was so loud that the windows were shaking. I rolled out of bed to look (you know it's bad if I roll out of bed to do anything), but it was dark and I didn't have my glasses on, so I couldn't see anything. I grabbed my glasses, but all I could make out were trees whipping around in the park next door. I wondered why no one else was panicking. As my eyes adjusted, I noticed that it wasn't even raining, which I thought was weird, because the thunder was scarily intense. Then my brain started to work, and I figured out what was happening. Julia lives on the 9th floor of a building that is next door to a park. Because of the park, there are no buildings on to my side of the apartment. This means that the wind is free to whip against my window as it so chooses. Apparently, it chooses to whip against my window quite vigorously. What I thought was thunder was actually just the wind. So no need to panic, I decided. I crawled back into bed, only to have my alarm clock go off ten minutes later.

So I woke up, finished an economics reading, took a brief nap, then took a shower and got dressed. I had breakfast and chatted with Baquita, then was off to run some errands. I went to Barclay's to cash my Morocco partial-reimbursement from BC (I waited until the exchange rate went up, so I made a tidy $15 profit), but the Barclay's lady said she didn't have access to the cash today, but that there was another Barclay's a few blocks down that did. Fine, I thought, as I looked forward to wandering around in the windstorm looking for the other Barclay's. I stopped first at the closest papeleria, where I needed to get some school supplies, but they didn't have colored paper, so I thought, maybe one of the grocery stores will. I looked at a map and wandered towards where the second Barclay's was supposed to be. Luckily for me, it was actually there, so I tried to let myself in. Of course, this Barclay's has a complicated door system, as well, and it is different than the one that attacked my thumb. A man was yelling directions to me from inside, but I couldn't understand a word of what he was saying (apparently, I should brush up on my door-entering vocabulary), so I shouted back that I barely speak Spanish, and he shut off the door system to let me in. He didn't seem pleased about it, but he did cash my check, and I managed to let myself out without problems.

Then I looped around to one of the neighborhood grocery stores, didn't see any colored paper, and went to another down the street. They didn't have any colored paper either, but they did have a wall of chocolate. I stopped to gawk, and after about 5 minutes of my staring at the wall, a bunch of business people came out and started taking pictures of the display. This rudely interrupted the gawking process. Since they were standing between me and the chocolate, I decided to loop around the store, and then come back, hoping that by that time, they would be gone. Of course, they weren't, and then I felt silly having come back to gawk a second time. So I grabbed a promising looking pack of assorted chocolates and checked out. Someday when I am a business woman taking pictures of chocolate displays, I will know not to bring all my friends with me and interrupt everyone's shopping processes (indiscriminate of how prolonged their shopping processes are).

I stopped at a sketchy papeleria on the way back to Julia's, but did find colored paper there, so mission accomplished, I headed home. I spent the morning working on art projects and eating my Socado chocolates. They are good. Really good. As a semi-professional chocolate aficionado, I rate these chocolates very high on the all-time records list, so I will probably be visiting that grocery store again, despite it's annoying chocolate photographers.

I then had Spanish class, (which was as scintillating as always) and stopped at Nuevos Ministerios on the way home. Lizzie said there was a post office in the Corte Ingles there, and I had to mail my letters to the Countess (I have two addresses, therefore she is getting two letters). Yes, that's right folks, they have officially been sent. I went up to the mail lady and said in perfect Spanish,"I would like to send these letters, please." She replied, "You're in the wrong section. The post office is around the corner." Turns out she was the customer service representative, not the mail lady. Undeterred, I rounded the corner and waited in the real mail line, repeated my brilliant statement, and sent my letters. The Countess should be getting them any day now.

I made it home just as Julia was heading out. "Where are you going?" I asked. "Out," she replied. I had dinner alone, as she hasn't come back yet, but I should probably take a nap now, as at 12:30, I will be heading to the airport. My friend, Kevin, and I are on the same flight that leaves tomorrow morning at 6:55 am. Unfortunately, we need to check in before the metro opens, and rather than pay for a taxi, we are going to sleep at the airport. This will be good practice for when we sleep at the airport in Lisbon on Sunday night (we have an early flight on Monday morning and don't want to pay the for the taxi or for the extra night at the hostel). Julia nearly had a conniption when I told her where I would be spending the night (although she still didn't offer to give me a ride to the airport in the morning) and Baquita said this is when having a big, strong, Spanish boyfriend comes in handy. I said Kevin would have to do.

I'll talk to you in a few days!