Mall Round 2

(photo courtesy of madrid.lanetro.com)

Yesterday Kathleen and I went back to the mall and it was open! Hooray! Most of the stores in the mall are the same as the ones you can find in the city center (H&M, Bershka, Desigual, etc), but the reason we had to go to the mall was to go to Primark, which is an Irish or British chain that sells super super cheap clothes. Yes, they will probably fall apart after one season, but oh well. (I know, I know--I'm buying more clothes even though I'm freaking out about whether or not there will be enough room in my suitcases as it is. It's foolish.) After Primark we went to Ikea and we had a good time designing our future living spaces...and trying out every comfy looking chair in the store.

(this was seriously the most comfortable chair I've ever sat in)

(Kathleen can't resist a good sale and was trying to figure out how she could pack this chair if she bought it--she didn't buy it.)

After some more wandering we found ourselves at Carrefour. Normally going to Carrefour would not be a big deal--it's the grocery store down the street that I go to all the time, but what I go to is a Carrefour City. What we went to yesterday was a Carrefour hypermarket, or pretty much the European Super Walmart (except I don't think they had clothes there other than underwear, but then again I was only there to buy toothpaste so I didn't look for them). I've gotten used to everything being relatively small in Spain, so to see a huge store filled with so much stuff (it's a different kind of stuff than El Corte Inglés because it's not like a department store) was really overwhelming, but it was also kind of exciting to have more than two brands of toothpaste to choose from and to be able to find Dove stick deodorant instead of the normal roll on/spray crap that is usually the only thing on the shelves. While I know that malls/hypermarkets are kind of the ultimate symbol of American consumerism (being in a mall in Spain feels just like being in a mall in the U.S), I am bit ashamed to admit that it felt oddly comforting to be at a place in which so much stuff was congregated. It was just so convenient to know that I could find everything in one place! So while I pretend to be more "cultured" now that I've lived in Europe, the truth is that I'm still a typical American in so many ways.

(I just look so happy to be among so much stuff, but I reality I was yelling at Kathleen not to take a picture of me.)
(We thought the digital price indicators were cool.)

Ha

Today Kathleen, my roommate, and I decided to go to the mall. I was really excited because we decided to go to the one that's a good 40 minute metro ride away but has an IKEA. We got off the metro in this very strange neighborhood. It was strange because it was just so...I don't know. It just had this very prefabricated feel to it. It didn't look like Madrid at all and instead felt like we were on some sort of movie set. It was also weird because there was practically no one outside on the streets. I told Kathleen like it looked like it was the day after the zombie apocalypse (sans zombies of course...I guess the non-zombies won). Anyway, we trekked over to the mall and I was really weirded out by the fact that there were no cars there. We got in the mall and then realized that only the food court was open--today is Madrid's San Isidro festival. I knew that, but forgot to think that because of it all stores would be closed. So yes, my effort to put off studying for my exams by going to the mall turned out to be an epic fail.

School is officially done. I have one kind-of exam for language on Monday, and then my finals for history on Tuesday, art history on Wednesday and lit. on Monday the 25th. I know that if I actually study I'll be all right, but it's really hard to sit down and do it. It's been especially hard because people that I've gotten to know from other programs are starting to leave now, and it's just hard to focus in the middle of saying goodbye. One of my really good friends is leaving on Sunday...

The two pictures at the top of the post are ones my friend Sonya took of these two mosaics up in Sol. They're recreations of the paintings the 2nd and 3rd of May by Goya. Apparently they made them with over 80,000 pictures sent in by Madrileños! They're really beautiful at night when the lights from the windows illuminate them from behind.

Oh! In other exciting news there was a small fire in the building across the street from my apartment building. I don't think anyone was hurt and the firetruck was only on the street for about 15 minutes, so I don't think it was a bad fire, but I did see smoke!

What I'm going to do the first week I get back to the States

I am going to eat these things at these restaurants:
1) Steak Grilled Stuffed Burrito--Taco Bell
2) Pepperoni Pizza & Garlic Knots--Politos
3) Hamburger w/ Pepper Jack Cheese--Becket's
4) Pepperoni Stix & Berry Stix--Toppers
5) $5 Footlong--Subway
6) Chicken Strips & Nickel Nuggets--Glass Nickel
7) Pork BBQ--Pearson's
8) Wings--Buffalo Wild Wings/The Bar
9) Short Stack--IHOP
10) Japanese Pan Noodles--Noodles and Co.

And I'm going to drink as much Diet Mountain Dew as I can find!

Happy Birthday Elena Maria!

It's my roommate (back in the U.S.), Elena Maria's, 21st birthday today! Because of this, it seemed worthwhile to mention that in Spain you can order beer at McDonalds or Burger King. What's very funny to me is that I rarely see Americans order beer with their food; instead the Spaniards are the ones walking around with these clear plastic cups of beer on their trays next to their fries and Big Macs. Anyway, that's just a random tidbit I thought I'd share.

(Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but I'm going to Valencia this weekend and I will write a big update after that!)

The Corte Inglés Rant

I have mentioned it a few times on this blog, but today I'm going to expound on my dislike for the Corte Inglés. Corte Inglés is this Spanish chain of stores. The stores themselves are huge and are kind of like a department store (like Macy's) with a grocery store in the basement. Then outside of the main store you can usually find a Corte Inglés bookstore and/or music/movie store. Some of the stores also have travel agencies in/around them. Pretty much this huge store is located in almost every neighborhood of the city. (There is one two blocks away from my house in one direction and about five or six blocks away in the other direction.) Also, outside of Madrid there is Hipercor (which is owned by Corte Inglés) which I haven't been to, but I'm guessing is kind of like Costco or something. So I guess my first reason for disliking the Corte Inglés is that I feel like it tries to be too many things.

Anyway, the store is supposed to have anything your little heart desires. Well in my opinion, the stupid store has both everything and nothing at the same time. I can find pretty much anything that I don't need and nothing that I do need. And the stuff that I can find is in the most random places. And everything is super overpriced. I don't know why I even go there, but today I did. I needed a new mesh laundry hamper thing and some tights for this party I'm going to on Friday night. First I decided to look for the laundry hamper. I figured it would be in the pet store part (by the hangers--see this post for that story) and I was kind of right. I wandered around for a while and finally asked somebody where I could find something to put my dirty clothes in (I didn't know the Spanish word for hamper at the time). Well the worker guy showed me this 20 euro hamper thing and after I scrunched up my face at the price (I was looking for like those mesh pop up laundry hampers that you can by at Target for like five dollars) he poked around some more before finally saying he didn't have anything else and scampering off. I gave up that search and decided to look for the tights.

I found those without any problem. However, I picked up this decent looking pair and they were 21 euro. My question is, who would pay 20-some euros for tights that will probably end up getting snagged on something the second time you wear them? Not this girl (the fact that I'm a klutz means I would probably snag them the first time I wore them). Then I wandered around some more and they just had so many to choose from that it was overwhelming. The problem with all of the options was that, aside from those 20-some euro tights, most did not have a price on them. Finally I just picked up an inexpensive looking pair and checked out (and was relieved to find out that they were, indeed, fairly inexpensive).

So yes, these experiences have not been terribly traumatic in and of themselves (well the experience in the Corte Inglés coupled with my post office experience was a bit traumatic), but each time I go to that store I just get more and more annoyed with it. And no, the Corte Inglés is not some metaphor for Spanish culture in general or anything like that (because I do really love Spain and Madrid and everything). It's just a store that really annoys me and makes me really miss Target. Seriously, I'd give just about anything to have Target only two blocks away.

Oh and just to let you know, tonight I walked around the neighborhood with these two girls who just moved in and I pointed out the "chino"* located around the corner. We went inside to look around and I found a mesh hamper in there almost right away for only four euros.

*(It's kind of hard to explain what a chino is without sounding a little bit politically incorrect or something, but in most neighborhoods there are these super cheap stores with the most random assortment of stuff in them that are generally owned by Chinese people. The Spanish word for Chinese is Chino, thus the Spaniards refer to these stores as chinos.)

My traumatic experience with the postal service.

Actually The Postal Service is one of my favorite bands and I had a great time singing along to "Such Great Heights" with a bunch of friends this weekend. That is not the postal service that I am talking about in this post (and I'm sure most of you probably didn't think it was--I just wanted to give props to great music).

No, this week I was traumatized with my dealings with the Correos, Spain's postal service. It all started out with me having to send my camera back to the U.S. so it can get fixed. I decided to look into doing this on Monday and I thought I'd just go to the Correos office on my street. Well for some reason that office is not open to the public. It's only a sorting center or something like that. Because I was already on that end of the street I decided to go to the Corte Inglés to find some packing materials, but after walking around for 15 or so minutes with a packing tape dispenser in my hands, but no actual packing tape, I finally asked where it was and was told that they do not carry packing tape (they just carry dispensers--dumb. I really have a love/hate relationship with Corte Inglés that I will have to post about some time). That night I got home and put my postal code in the finder on the Correos website and it told me the next closest office and I decided to go there after school on Tuesday.

On Tuesday I studied my metro map carefully and took it to where I needed to go to find the Correos ofice. I walked up and down the street and rechecked the address. Apparently there is no office at that location anymore or something. Foiled again.

So today I decided that I knew there was a Correos office in the Corte Inglés near Puerta del Sol. I went there after school and had to go down into the basement and then walk through this creepy parking garage just to find the office. I had read on the Correos website that I could buy a box there to ship my camera, so I waited in line and then asked the man (in Spanish) if they sold shipping boxes. He told me that yes, they do sell boxes there, but they didn't have any today. Oh. Okay. I wandered around that Corte Inglés for a little while trying to come up with innovative packing materials, and could not find anything that would work. Then I decided to go to the ISA office nearby because I figured the directors might have an idea where I could find a box. David was the only one there and told me the post office in Corte Inglés. Ha.

After that I decided to do what I should have just done all along--go to the Palacio de Comunicaciones. Really, that sounds a lot more special than it actually is. It's a beautiful building on the outside, but just a huge post office on the inside. (I think I have a picture of the building in one of my previous Facebook albums--I just didn't know what it was called at the time.) I went inside, stood around, and finally figured out that you had to take a number even though there were like 10+ stations open and only five customers there. I had to pick what kind of number I wanted to take and I picked the one that said I needed to buy something because I needed to buy a box. Well, I chose correctly and when I got up there the guy asked me what I wanted and I said in Spanish "I need a box big enough to send my camera to the United States." Well, he got pissy when he heard that and left me for a minute and came back with this really nice woman who got me my box, but told me that they did not accept credit cards. I only had 20 euros on me and had to spend 3 to buy the box (and I had figured it would probably cost around 25 to send the package), so I decided to just get the box and come back later with more cash. Like I said, the woman was very nice, so she weighed my package before I left and told me it would only cost 4,80 to send. I couldn't believe it would be so cheap, but was happy that I could just stay there and mail it. Unfortunately I had to take another number to get in "send" line (because I had been in the "buy" line). I got up there and handed the guy all of my information and he weighed my package and told me it would cost 18 euros to send. Oh. Apparently the nice worker had put in the wrong postal code. I was a euro short, so I took the box and walked outside. However, I scrounged around in my pocket and found two more euros in change, so I went back in, took another number, waited around, got up there, waited while the worker guy flirted with a worker girl and finally sent the box. I was so relieved just to be done with that experience. Although now we have to wait and see if the box actually gets to Wisconsin.

Of course when I got to the metro, I found that with all my digging in my pockets for various things at the post office I had lost my metro pass that still had 7 trips left on it. It's a good thing I found that last euro in my pocket because it bought me my trip home.

So the moral of this story is that you should just go to the big post office to begin with. And don't trust the Correos website for anything. I really love Spain, but sometimes I just feel that people aren't really on top of things and they kind of like to give you the run-around.

P.S. Just to let you all know I don't have classes on Thursdays ever and there's some holiday on Friday so I have an extra long weekend. My friends and I are going to Zaragoza on Friday, so I probably won't update this again until Sunday.