Felicidades!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

So the holidays have just recently ended. I hope everyone had a wonderful time! I now I enjoyed myself very much. Here is a hopefully brief day-to-day recap of my holiday season.

December 24th, Christmas Eve to us Americans, but the day of Papa Noel to Spaniards. I layed in bed for most of the day just because I had nothing else important to do and didn't want to spend money. AnaOla and Aurora came in my room and we exchanged presents. They gave me a butt bag kinda thing that rests on the side of your hip and some rainbow colored box earrings and a FerreRoche coconut candy. Haha! Where as my lovely mother sent the family a whole bunch of Gilroy Garlic stuff that the girls got a kick out of! The family does have a couple of the things up for decoration, but I don't know if they've used any of the recipes or the seasons.
AnaOla just recently got her carnet and has really been wanting to go for a small trip. So we decide to drive to Escorial for the afternoon and make it back on time for dinner. She calls her friend Arturo to see if he's down, and I call Darlene. Both are down so we make our way to Moncloa to pick them up & wait for them. Haha!
Eventually we're all there and we head off! I had shotty because Ana, the mom, told me to watch over her since I already know how to drive. Somehow my sense of direction outside of Madrid was better than both the madrileños in the car. Escorial is a very hilly town and there is very little parking. Haha... Because of this, and it being her first time driving AnaOla has some trouble parking the car, which continues to turn off whenever she tries to accelerate it. Haha! She gave the car behind us a pretty strong love tap. And eventually a lady walking her dog offers to park the car for her. Me and Dar are in the back seat at this point and AnaOla and Arturo are outside guiding the lady. But other cars keep trying to pass us when its clearly impossible to do so and the car keeps turning off (Its a manual by the way). So the lady takes me and Dar around the block to give it another shot. Haha! I think this is all pretty funny, but very frustrating for a first time driver and think its best if we just keep going to look for more parking or just to leave.
We end up parking where only taxis are allowed to park, but we weren't going to be there for long and it would all be fine. Escorial had these huge paper maché characters and scenes all dealing with Los Reyes Magos and Navidad. It was pretty cool. We had a round cervecitas and bocadillos de tortilla before we left again. This time I sat in the back seat the whole ride...
We'd been driving for quite some time when we realize there is a sign that says something along the lines of "You are now entering Segovia" haha! Definately NOT where we wanted to be going! So we exit the freeway and turn around and have to pay a toll and ask the toll guy how to get back to Madrid. Thanks to his directions we start making our way home. Its getting late and it was almost dinner time. So as we head towards Madrid we notice snow banks along the side of the road. Haha! It was so sweet! So we move the hood down so we can look at the stars... And I can still see the Little and Big Dippers!!!
Eventually we make it home after getting some directions from Arturo's mom. Darlene came back to our house with us because she and I were going to be going to either our friend Jackie's or Pamela's places to spend Christmas Eve together. When we got there the family invited us to dinner, which was more of a foced invitation so we joined them. It was really cool. It was a plain simple spanish dinner with jámon serrano and shrimp and some kind of fish with dessert of course. And they sang a lot too. I was suprised to see the grandma singing and banging on the table in tune with everyone else too! Haha!
After dinner I packed up my backpack and me and Dar headed to Pam's place. We walked because the nocturnal bus would take too long to get to where we were and Pam's barrio wasn't too far. We ended up getting there some time around 1. Pam, Jessica, Ehika, and Eddie were all already there and watching a movie. I ended up going to bed some time around 7 am. Don't even ask what we did for that long because we didn't start any other movies nor were we drinking... I guess it was just filled with talking?
I was the first one awake the next morning. Go figure right? And accidently woke up Pam and Jessica when I went in the room to get my backpack so I could read my book. Darlene left about an hour after I woke up and Pam and Jessica got to cooking Christmas breakfast about a half hour after she left... I just sat and watched and was the "runner." Haha! We eventually woke Ehika up when everything was ready. We had eggs, hashbrown patty like things, something resembling sausage, homemade eggnog (that didn't tast like eggnog, it was mostly just cinnamon in milk), and mamosas. Haha! And with a little bit of bbq sauce everything was delicious! I cleaned all the dishes after and we started watching Mean Girls, but I felt like showering and lounging in my own house so I got dressed and walked home.
After skyping my family twice and feeling like I was on Big Brother I got ready and went and met up with the rest of our program after their Christmas dinner. I was still pretty full from breakfast, so I didn't need to eat any more. A few of us went out to the bars and had kebabs late night, then the four girls taxied over to our friend Raychel's house and crashed for the night.
I should really add that Darlene and I knew the Christmas plans for both the brothers that work/own El Tigre and their 4th bartender. Haha! A couple days later 2 of Emma's friends came in to town and Darlene and I offered to show them around if they wanted. Me and Dar pre-drank and ate at her house, then met Eddie in Tribunal. Emma's friends met up with us, and wanted to go to El Tigre, so we gladly went! Haha... Dar and Emma's friends ended up leaving with some Italian boys they met in the bar and I stayed with Eddie and some Irish guy he had met at the bar. We stayed until closing then made our way to a pub near Sol. Jackie and her sister were there so I got to hang out with them before they left and on the way home I fell 3 times due to the "ice" that was on the floor. Haha! I have a huge bruise and my khaki chords are pretty black-ish brown on one side. But I got home safely and had fun recuperating the next day.
Me and Dar went on a bit of a shopping spree on the 30th so I could have something to wear for New Year's Eve. After I bought everything I felt so guilty I got home and pulled an outfit together out of my closet and returned almost everything the next morning. Haha... I felt like one of those people I hate that come in my store right at opening to return stuff they shouldn't have ever bought. So sorry.
I hung out with Pam and Jessica for a while because I had to pick up my coat from Pam's place. Then went over to Darlene's to get a plethora of other things I have left at her house over the past few days and to borrow a pair of earrings.
Dinner with the family started at about 10 with jámon serrano and shrimp again. No fish this time. But we did have something that I think was lemon sherbert with champagne. It was really good. After dinner I helped put the dishes in the dishwasher and the family danced. haha... I just sat and watched because I'm not to comfortable dancing to the music they were playing because I don't really know how. At midnight we all ate our 12 grapes with the dongs of the clock and toasted with champagne afterwords. Then Aurora, AnaOla, and I finished getting ready and left to head to the bar.
We stopped at a botellón in our barrio where all of AnaOla's friends were meeting up to leave together. There were probably about 20 or 25 of us squeezing in to the metro at around 1:25. By the time we got there Darlene, Jose, Eddie, and Jose's friend were already there. And the rest of the night was a blast! Pam and Jessica ended up meeting up with us at the bar. The bar closed at 7 or 8 I think? By that time pretty much all of my friends had already left. All the madrileños were headed to Sol to eat churros con chocolate, but Aurora and AnaOla had a flight at 10 to the Carribean so we headed home. In broad daylight. It was nuts. I texted everyone Happy New Year and talked with my parents at 9 am then took a 5 hour nap before meeting up with my frien Ana for an all day party. Haha!
There were 3 of these parties going on on the 1st and we went to one waaaaaaay outside of Madrid. We had to take a bus to get there. It was really fun though. We went with 3 British boys we met through Ana's new Canadian friend, Isabel. They're a cool group of people. The party ended at midnight and we all made it back to Madrid safely. Me and Ana walked to her house, ate grilled cheese sandwiches and passed out for the night.

And that has been my holiday season so far. I hope it hasn't bored you too much! Feliz Año!