M.I.A.

I have been/will be m.i.a. for a while because my mom has been visiting and then April is coming on Thursday. I´ll update about everything that´s been going on later!

P.S. Some of the symbols in this post look funny because I´m typing on a Spanish keyboard. It is not my favorite thing to do.

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!

So I'm finally speaking Spanish...

This is the week that I have finally gotten serious about speaking Spanish here. Yes, I know I'm six weeks (maybe seven) into my adventures (and it isn't like I haven't spoken any Spanish since I've been here), but I'll be honest, it's been pretty easy to get away with speaking a lot of English. This week though I've spoken more Spanish than I ever have in my life.

On Monday I went out with Sonya, Julie and Sonya's friend who is Russian, but would only speak to us and let us speak to her in Spanish. That was a solid two and a half hours of Spanish conversation and it was nice because while Sonya's friend's Spanish was really good, she isn't a native speaker so I didn't worry about sounding super dumb in front of her.

Then on Tuesday I sat next to a woman on the bus who had books that really interested me and I spoke with her in Spanish. She ended up being a professor of geography at my university. It's funny, and I don't know if it's because of the sorts of topics that I'm used to talking about in Spanish or what, but I'm much more confident when I speak about academic topics (like books, history, etc.) than I am when I speak about my personal life. Later on I played fútbol with some people from ISA and that was an interesting mix of Spanish and English. It was so much fun though. I've been sore for two days because I'm so out of shape (and also because I did this awesome slide-tackle sort of thing...on a surface like a tennis court), but I think fútbol day will be something I very much look forward to each week.

Yesterday (Thursday) was the best Spanish-speaking day. I went to this talent show at the ISA office. I don't really have any talents; I just went to watch. I got there at 5, when the email said it would start, because I really cannot bring myself to be Spanish and arrive late to things. I try, I really try. I tell myself that I will leave my house later and such, but I always get to everything on time. Anyway, I met these two Spanish girls there who came for an intercambio. The "rules" of an intercambio are vague, but the idea is that you practice Spanish with a native speaker of Spanish and they practice their English with you (a native speaker of English). I ended up talking with these girls (mostly in Spanish) for three hours. One of the girls, Esmeralda, thought I was funny because I was so "tactful" when I corrected her. She was like, "I might seem rude when I correct you; I can't help it--I'm Spanish." But I told her that Spaniards aren't rude, they're just very forward. (They are also very good at giving backhanded compliments.) Anyway, both of the girls were really nice and we exchanged phone numbers and email addresses so that we can go get coffee next week and continue practicing with each other. I'm jealous though--they say their English isn't very good, but if I spoke Spanish half as well as they speak English, I'd feel pretty good about myself.

Quick Update

So this week has been a pretty normal week so far, so I don't have much to write about it. I just didn't have anything happen that was story-worthy! But I am going to Granada tomorrow through Sunday, so expect a long update Monday!

To pass the time while I'm gone, check out some of the other blogs that I've linked to (if you haven't already). You can find them on the right side of this page under "my blog list."

Too fast.

Wow. This week has just flown by. I can't believe it's already Thursday night. It was really nice not having school today, but because of that it is really hard for me to be motivated to go to school tomorrow. Oh well, at least I don't have to go until noon.

And in other news I just turned on my camera to find that the screen is completely messed up/broken. So I'm kind of freaking out right now.

Well, I was going to write about my fun night out last night, but I'll just gloss over it because I am really frustrated right now. Sonya, Julie, Rachel (my new friend who is just such a fun person to be around), Rachel's friend Kate, and I went to this place where everything (food and drinks) is a euro on Wednesday nights. We had a really good time.

Also, today I finally went to the Prado. Las Meninas (the painting at the top of this post) was just stunning to actually see in person. It's so huge and it just has a vacuum-like power that completely draws the viewer in to explore all of its depth and details. I saw so many other paintings that I had been really excited to see as well and really became a huge fan of Goya. His work was amazing. I'll probably go back again because there was just too much to see in a too short amount of time.

Now I'm going to try to see what I can do about my camera. Ugh. Of course this had to happen...

P.S. I'm going to El Escorial on Saturday, so my next post my not be until Sunday. I hope to have some pictures for you somehow.

¡Mis maletas están aquí! (Finalmente)

Hi everyone,

Sorry to disappoint you but I kind of took the day off today. I slept in, went to El Corte Inglés to buy hangers (which took about an hour because I could not find them and rode the escalator up and down 50 billion times...they ended up being like right next to the pet supplies), and then waited for the call that my luggage had arrived. It finally came. Seriously, it was one of the happiest moments of my life. I went over to the ISA office to go pick it up and ended up taking my first ride in a taxi (I wasn't about to haul my huge suitcases on the metro). The driver was really nice and we had a good conversation. Then I unpacked, which took about as long as it took me to pack and ended up falling asleep for a while. Then I decided I was too lazy to go anywhere and read instead. It was actually a really nice, quiet day. But I have a busy-ish day planned for tomorrow to make up for being lazy today.

Based on my conversation with the taxi driver today and the conversations I've been having with the ISA directors I've come to the conclusion that my Spanish is a lot better when I stop thinking about it. When I start to think too hard I begin constructing these elaborate sentences in my head that are hard enough to spit out in English. While sometimes I feel like I'm talking like a child, I've started to become satisfied with simple, effective sentences to get my ideas across when I'm speaking in Spanish. That's not to say that I'm not going to challenge myself to speak better, but I'm starting to realize that speaking Spanish here isn't about being perfect, but instead it's about being understood. And when I let go and just focus on being understood, the grammatical elements seem to just fall into place (and even if they don't, it's not the end of the world).

On a completely different note, does anyone have any cheap, easy meal ideas? After this weekend I'm going to need to go grocery shopping again.

Pictures of my room

As you all can probably tell I have a very small room, but it is really comfortable and it just kind of feels like it was meant for me. I have a really nice view of the street, so this morning I just sat and people watched. I discovered a lot of people own big dogs (even though they live in these relatively tiny apartments).

I still have not gotten my luggage and I need to go to a meeting tomorrow with the study abroad company, so I bought some laundry detergent and did my laundry in the sink tonight. So yes, I went to the grocery store and bought my first groceries today--apples, granola bars, Golden Grahams (yes they have them in Spain), Coca-Cola Light, orange juice, almonds, some microwavable meals (with beans and chorizo so they're different than what we have in the US) and laundry detergent. All of the stuff cost me 20 euros (to get a feel for how much stuff is in Madrid). I kinda freaked out while I was checking out because I do not know what coins are what and I really didn't even know if I was handing the cashier the right ones or not.

Also today a friend and I went around Madrid and I figured out how to get downtown (to the Puerta del Sol y la Plaza Mayor and the ISA office) and I also figured out how to get to school on the bus and the metro. I'm going back downtown tomorrow, so I'll put up some pictures then. We were kind of in a hurry today, so I didn't want to stop and take pictures of everything. But I just have to say that I live in a beautiful city and today was a great day.

Delayed...

So yesterday my direct flight to Madrid from Chicago was cancelled. Luckily (?) they put me on a flight to London and then on to Madrid. So now I am in London! However, I am stuck here. Boo. All of the flights to and from Madrid are delayed because the airport shut down yesterday due to snow. (If those people lived in Wisconsin they would have a major melt down seeing all the snow we've gotten.) So yeah, at least I'm across the Atlantic now and I'm just chilling out at Heathrow until I know what's going on.

I did have a nice flight to London. I sat next to this guy named Joe who was really funny and took a lot of xanax. He helped me navigate this airport until we had to part ways.

This morning as we were landing we were flying directly into the sunrise and it was pretty beautiful.

I'm leaving tomorrow!

Hi everyone,
Weather permitting I fly out tomorrow afternoon. It's an eight hour flight and then there's a seven hour time difference between here and Madrid so I arrive at about 8 a.m. Pretty much I plan on knocking myself out with Tylenol P.M. on the plane because I want to be able to stay up for the rest of the day when I get there.
Right now I'm writing this post as a distraction from packing. It's rough trying to fit five months of your life into two bags that have to weigh less than 50 pounds. All I know is that there is one thing in the above photo that will definitely not being coming with me!

Hola Everyone!

If you're reading this you probably know that I am going to be studying at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, Spain for the 2009 spring semester. I've created this blog so you can get a glimpse into what I'm doing while I'm there (and no, I don't plan on being an "empollona" and studying the whole time).

Just to let all of you know, I am leaving on January 9 and I will be returning (unless I decide to never come back) on June 16.