Finally in Madrid!

Hello,
So I finally made it here to Madrid, Spain. It is AMAZING!!!! I must say! It's been a month so far since we've arrived. If you feel like continuing on to read this feel free. Just know it will be very long. I have a month of stories to catch up on telling. And if you know me, you know how long it takes for me to tell a story. haha! Lo siento.

The flight here wasn't all that bad. I sat next to a spanish-fluent girl that was going to study in Madrid, a girl that knew less spanish than me, but she was going to Madrid, and an older girl that just recently graduated college and was going to work in Paris after having studied there for a semester. She was super excited we were all going to be in Madrid for a year. Anyways, before the flight I met a girl named Emma Kerss who happens to attend CSULB too. And now there are four of us. Me, Emma, Ellie Kiesel (from Chico/CSU Chico), and Darlene Powell (from Palm Springs/SDSU). We have two "brother" -like characters. Dylan Christopher (Berkley/SFSU) and Phl Garza (SLO/SFSU). They are entertaining boys I must say. Hah!

For our first two weeks here we stayed in the International House... a dorm for international students of the Universitaria Compultence de Madrid. We made pretty good friends with a boy name Kais, that has been in Spain for a while, but was actually born in Africa. He showed us around the few bars near us. Introduced us to a drink called "Calimocho," which is red wine (vino tinto en espanol) and coca-cola. Very delicious. The drink of the youth though. Its not something one should order unless you've had it at the bar before, or there are lots of young people at the bar already. During those two weeks we had to find housing for ourselves and take a couple days of orientation courses to get us acquainted with the culture.

Those were our PLP courses. We were place in 3 different "levels" of spanish courses. Which they tried to convince us were based on our learning styles of spanish, but really are just because some of us suck at spanish (AKA me and about 10 other people... we don't suck. Its just really hard to communicatue with ease for us). and others have been speaking spanish their whole lives and dont' really need courses on it at all. Haha... and we all share the same Contemporary History course and Culture course. These classes just ended this past Wednesday and Thursday with our final tests. I'm pretty sure I aced my History test, but my spanish one worries me. For our spanish classes we each had to turn in a research paper varying in length depending on what class you were in. For my class it was only 1000-1200 words on any subject dealing with Spain and its culture. I chose a comparison of the youth from Spain and the youth from the U.S. I ended my paper with a little over 1350 words. I was pretty proud. I just hope it was grammatically correct. Some people have complained that they would give us such difficult of a paper during our first month long course here in Spain. Personally I'm glad. Its definately preparing us best for our tests in January and the term papers that will most likely be due at the end of the semester too. So I'm content with it. I signed up for my courses too.

Monday & Tuesday I'm taking Spanish Grammar, Geography of Spain, and an economic analalsys course. And on Thursday and Friday I'm taking a class on women in Spanish Literature and an International Political Science class. I'm pretty stoked! You know how I get when it comes to the first days of school/class.... I'm a nerd at heart. I just need to stay focused and I'll be fine.

Anyways. Back to more interesting things. Going out to the local college bars near the dorms basically meant harassment by creepy drunk Spanish students. They are very aggressive here. You have to be very blunt about not wanting them to talk/touch/follow you home here. We all stayed together though, so there weren't ever any problems. I felt bad for Dylan, he usually was the last boy standing to keep guard over us American girls... since the stereotype here is that we're easy... and had to make sure no one got too friendly or frisky with any of us. Just in case we needed muscle strength, with didn't ever happen.

Our friend Kais once took us t a botellon. None of us knew what was going on really. We though we were just headed to another bar, but when we got to the park next to the bar where there was a ridiculously large group of students drinking out in the open we all got a little weirded out. The botellones are supposed to be illegal, but several cops drove by and didn't do anything about it. Its the begininning of the year, so there were a few "novatos" also considered freshmen with writing on their forheads performing acts that would usually get someone accepted in to a frat or sorrority. But here in Spain you go through these things for whichever department (facultad) you're in. I've talked to older people that said they went through the same things when they were younger too. Its really crazy.... And cool at the same time.

I ended up moving in to an apartment (piso) that is kind of far away from school, the downtown area (el centro), and Moncloa-Aruguelles (which is where most of the people I know live). So I'm not really digging it. The three girls I hang out with all live together, which is where I am writing this blog... I should be sleeping though. It is 5 AM. 8 PM your time. Anyways, I'm currently looking for another, cheaper, perhaps closer place to live before the end of the month since I had no money to travel and have a week here in Spain to spend finding a new place. Wish me luck!

Since I've been here I've also participated in "La Noche En Blanco." A city wide festival celebrating the end of summer... thousands and thousands of people are in the streets all night, the metros don't stop running, there are art instalations in some plazas and music in others and everyone is having botellones. We met a few really cool peopl that night too! it was awesome!!! Hopefully I'll be able to put up a bunch of pictures too.

I've also enjoyed a Sunday afternoon in the Parque del Buen Retiro. Which is super awesome too! Sunday afternoons are when the drum circles show up, so its pretty awesome to just sit, people watch and listen. It just so happens that the guys we were with that day drummed a tiny tiny bit in our little circle, bought beer for us from the asian people roaming the park, and supplied has cigarettes so we could relax a bit more. Lo siento for anyone that didn't know that about me. And P.S. on the cigarette part, I've slightly picked up the one habit I've always disliked the most. I'm not a regular smoker, but if its around, which is pretty much everywhere I tend to grab a smoke.

And today. Today I went to the Reina Sofia Museum... for free after 2:30 PM. And it was sooooooo beautiful!! I got to see several of Pablo Picasso's paintings, sketches, drawings. But the most amazing part about it was I was face to face with "Guernica." His most famous painting. I do believe it was a mural he was assigned by the Spanish government, but I could be wrong. It has been a couple years since my art class and my memories blur together. It was such a... "Holy shit Leah. You're in Madrid." moment. I was in awe. I found several other artists interesting as well as a different favorite painting. I've really only had two moments like that. The other was a random day in my history class when I really did understand everything our teacher was talking about.

So I'm still 9+ months away from returning home. Wish me luck and I will try and keep you more updated from here on out. Hopefully they won't be as long either. I love you all and miss you as well. Hasta luego!