Monday, March 9, 2009

Birthday -ish

So. Darlene had been asking me all along what was it I wanted to do for my birthday, and I had been saying just to go out to 100 Monteditos since it fell on a Wednesday for a little bit, nothing big. I didn't even care if people were there or not. She decided that wasn't enough and that she was taking me out to dinner on Tuesday (the day that Obama began his presidency) the night before my birthday and also the night I have to teach English to my student Marvin. I really wanted to watch the inauguration so I cancelled my class and had it moved to Thursday instead. I went to Dar's house, she had found a nice Italian restaurant that she wanted to take me to and kept bugging me to see how much longer I'd be.
Earlier that day my roommate had sent me a text saying, "Hey its Anaola, what times is leah's party"... me thinking she's just silly decided she just forgot for the 10 billionth time that I had said Wednesday at 8pm at the 100 Monteditos in Tribunal. Then continued getting ready. I was suspicious obviously and thought that when I got the girls house they'd suprise me with them and the people that live there, which I was totally down for because I was tired. But no, Dar met me downstairs and we had a delicious, heavenly italian dinner! Sooooo good... with Tiramisu too! Then Dar had said she wanted to take me to this cool bar she'd gone on a date with one of her boys, that was really similar to this bar that we went to waaaaaaay back when we first got to Madrid. So we headed to the center and to the bar. When we were getting close to the bar I saw my friend Dylan and his friend Tomek skating in the plaza right next to it so I hollared at them to see what they were up to and if they wanted to join us at the bar. haha... They said sure and that they'd meet us inside. Then we got to the door and Anaola, my roommate and a few friends were smoking outside, I though it was really crazy how she ended up on her date in the same barrio as the bar we were going too! Then I turned and saw two of my friends, Pam and Marianna standing there too and thought, "well wait. Wtf?" and then I punched Dar in the arm. We went inside and a whoooooooooole bunch of my friends were there! Almost all of them! And they shouted suprise and said it had been planned for a couple weeks. And then when I thought about it it made sense that everyone in class on Tuesday had been asking if it was my birthday and I was confused and thought Facebook had messed up my birthday date on the upcoming birthdays tab. Haha!
That bar was really nice and really expensive, so me and Dar shared one drink while everyone else finished up theirs, then we went to the good ol' pubs just down the way. O'Connells. My favorite. And being girls we got a free round of shots just for going in on a weekday and somehow I ended up taking several of them instead. We drank and were merry and a lot of pictures came out of it and even a video too. Haha... Very fun! I spent the night at the girls place and took a long walk home through all the stores because my financial aid money had just gone through and I decided to find myself something cute. I ended up replacing a cardigan I had lost earlier that month with 2 more and a coffee from Starbucks.
The day of my birthday I met up with people at 100 Monteditos at around 8. Ana, my other really good friend here didn't make it out Tuesday night for the big party, but she made me a pillow and a card for Wednesday. Only a few people showed up Wednesday, mostly the people that weren't able to make it out Tuesday and their friends. Some of the WIP kids came out too which I thought was random and fun! Haha... Ana somehow talked me in to going out after 100 Monteditos closed and we found a cool swanky bar nearby and I spent the night at her house and skipped my 8:30am class, but we made it to our 10am class! Haha... the teacher got concerned for me when I got up to go to the bathroom bc, 1) I never leave the classroom during class and 2) I probably didn't looks too good at that time because of the hangover and lack of sleep. It was interesting having to explain to my La Mujer teacher why I had missed class Thursday, and my friend Janel too, because we'd gone out Wednesday for my b-day. He just laughed and congratulated me. Haha
That Friday Tai, british friend, gave me several calls about going out that night. He'd wanted me to call Ana, but she wasn't answering and wasn't online so I couldn't tell her, but apparently he was able to get ahold of her. We met up with him and a couple of his friends, Manuel and Paul, at Banco de España and went to a bar called AK Bar for the night where Tai bought us bottle service so we could chill in VIP for the night. Izzy met up with us a little while after we got there because she had had work to do.
The rest of the month is just kind of a blur. We had a welcome back event I guess for Ahab when he came home from Costa Rica and thats about it. Mostly school. Not too exciting.

Uhh... I have a lot to fill in on

Whoa I suck at this whole blogging thing. So here's a January recap for those interested.

The family I live with went on a vacation for the first week and a half or so of January, so it was just me and the grandparents during that time. haha... Quite interesting being alone with them. Anyways, a friend of my old roommate, her name's Tamiko, came to visit early in the month for about 3 days. Me and Darlene went to pick her up in her hotel her first night here, then we took her to El Tigre and the brothers fell in love because she is gorgeous. I really think Phillipe almost ran in to the wall as he walked the first time he saw her. Haha! Then we met up with my brit friend Tai and Isabel and we all went to a cool pub, then a little bar/discoteca for the rest of the night until about 6 am I believe. The next day we went and kicked it in Retiro for a bit and did a little more exploring, but we were all so tired we ended up crashing at my place watching a movie. Next day we had starbucks and saw a couple more landmarks, then I took her to the train station so she could continue her travels.
The very next day was the eve of Los Reyes Magos, therefore it was pretty much their Christmas eve AND the night before my friend Emma's birthday. Knowing that nothing would be open on Jan 6th we went out to a bar right next door to the girls house for a drink at midnight. Darlene invited me out that night for drinks so we hit up the nice little bar called, Dos con cincuenta, everything is 2,50€ until a certain time, then they go up to like 3€ or something. She met quite a few boys that night, but we met 2. Angel was 23 and a boxer and did not like that we used the term "tía" because he said its a word that the lower classes use. I can't remember his friends name because he kept telling us that he was from Polaca and thats all I could remember, eventhough he's not from there. Some strange spanish joke me and Dar just didn't understand. Well, when Dos con cincuenta got lame the boys took us to this other bar/discoteca down the street that ended up being really cool... but somewhere between the two bars I lost my cardigan. But still had my jacket and scarf, so I was chillin. They walked us back to Dar's and we passed out and woke up to Emma, Ellie, Sara, and Emma's friend from home just having arrived again.
We went out a few more times that week once people started making their way back in to Madrid to celebrate Emma's b-day, since we really didn't get to celebrate it much. One night we got a few WIP, Wisconsin program, people to go out to El Tigre with the normal crowd, but I am poor and don't like having a huge crowd in busy El Tigre anyways, so Dar joined me at my friend Isabel's house party. It was straight United Nations status. There were people there from every corner of the world and I swear we had about 10 different languages being spoken the whole night. It was fun! I spent the night and helped Izzy clean up the next day because I was pretty sure her hangover and the fact that the boys were still sleeping, wouldn't have been useful in cleaning.
Then school started again and we all had to get back on track with the school life. And then in a couple days my birthday had arrived. I think I'm gonna make this a new blog though. So your eyes don't hurt from reading so much.