These are the girls in Madrid that I love. Ellie Kiesel is on the left, she´s from Chico and goes to Chico state. She´s a total sweetheart and luckily for all of us her bf lived here for a year before and is back with us again and has been showing us where all the cool spots are. The second from the left is Miss Emma Kerss. She was born and raised in Sacramento and moved to Long Beach for school... we know a whole bunch of the same people, we just didn´t know we knew eachother. I love her too! We always end up finding people, events, places that we have in common back in LB. Then we have Darlene Powell... probably the one I understand the most. She´s complex, but I understand her. She´s boy crazy and fluent in spanish for the most part. Her mom´s from Nicaragua so she´s been raised speaking the language. She´s from a city just outside of Palm Springs and goes to SDSU. The girl on the right of Dar is Jessica Cheney. We were suitemates the first couple of weeks in the dorms. She and I don´t hang out much, but I love it when we do. I guess I would consider her my escape. We both have impecable skills when it comes to finding our way and giving directions. Haha...They´re my closest friends out here.

And these are the boys I´ve mentioned. Phil and Dylan. I´m not as close to them as I would excpect, but they definately have the big bro thing going.

This is my bedroom at Marquez de Viana, 57... the bed/door.

This is my desk and a bit of the sliding door...

And this is the view I have... yes, the trash cans are right in front.

So in order to escape from the piso that I don´t care much for I frequently find myself here. El Parque del Buen Retiro. This is a huge lake that you can take paddle boats out onto. It is so peaceful and gorgeous. Not as big as NY´s Central Park, but big nonetheless. On Sunday afternoons (during summer apparently) they have huge drum circles and they´re cool.

This is James, he´s the main guy that roomed/fed/showed us around Granada...

and this is Aaron, his roommate. Who bought blankets for us to crash on and didn´t step on us while walking in and out of his room. Haha...

this is Gabi... another one of the boys that gave a couple of us a place to sleep and shower as well as joined us on our excursions...

and then we have Ferny who did the same...

lastly we have Ben. He didn´t house any of us, but he just lived too far. But what is in his hands is more important right now. That is a Döner Kebab... DELICIOUS! They are Spain´s version of a burrito. Mmmmmmm

This is the giant wall I wrote about in the last blog. There is only a tiny row of crumbling bricks that we had to climb in order to get to where we are. It was soooo amazing.

One of my best friends from home, Sarah Chase, just paid me a visit... isn´t she awesome!

And we also just recently had the first couple of birthdays... We threw a suprise party for our friend Jacque.