Well, I've made it. I'm back home in the good 'ole USA. Kind of hard to believe it actually.
Unfortunately, my very last weekend in Spain I got pretty sick. I got a real bad cold and was coughing and congested and everything, but I refused to let that bring me down any. I was determined to enjoy my very last weekend in Madrid. And I did enjoy it bygolly. It's been interesting dealing with the Jetlag and the sickness at the same time, but I think I'm getting pretty over the jetlag pretty well (as I type this at 4 pm in the afternoon, I realize how tired I feel).
On my very last night in Madrid, we got our favorite bartender to open up the bar for us and our friends. That was nice. It was a good way to spend our last night there - at our favorite spot with our favorite madrilenos.
I thought for the very last post, it might be nice to list some of my highlights, that is to say some of the things I'm really gonna miss about Spain, and perhaps some of the things I won't miss so much.
Under my NOT MISS category:
Having to make a 45 minute commute to school and back home twice a day. While I definitely saw some interesting characters on the metro, and it usually ran pretty well, I won't miss the overwhelming odd smells and bumping and grinding with random people. Not to mention the overwhelming guilt I feel when I finally find a seat in the car, and then feel bad when I see an older person and have to give it up. By the end, I just decided to keep my head down so that way as long as I didn't see there was an old person who wanted to sit, I couldn't feel bad about not giving up my seat.
Riding in cars is another thing I won't miss about Madrid. Whether I was riding with a taxista or with my host mom or what have you, I never felt quite so sure I was going to die as in those instances. It's not that they're bad drivers necessarily, it's just that they don't find it necessary to keep more than a couple centimeters between their cars and others when on the road.
Eating at odd hours. I think I'll get pretty accustomed to eating between 5-7 o'clock again as opposed to 8-10 o'clock. Not to mention lunch at 2 on an early day. I usually broke that rule and got lunch around 1ish or so usually, so that wasn't too bad.
Breakfast cereals. I have the same type of cereal, chocolate cup type stuff, just about everyday I was there. It wasn't always the same brand, but it was always the same shape, and always chocolate. Won't be missing those.
Have I mentioned my commute???
Milk...It absolutely floors me that they can not only STORE their milk in warm places, but then drink it warm as well. So gross. Thank goodness for nice, cold milk once again.
Brandy trying to steal my food at dinner time and then when I didn't relent, biting my slippers. Come on Brandy, Grow up.
Things I WILL miss:
Speaking Spanish all the time. My host mom and host brother didn't speak any English, so in order to communicate, I had to speak Spanish. It was either sink or swim, and I doggy paddled pretty well. Although it still isn't perfect, I got good enough that I could hold political debates with my host mom. While I can still speak Spanish, I wont have people around for the next little while at least, to speak it with.s
My host mom. She took such good care of me from the laundry to my room to my food. She would always sit with me at dinner (as long as I got home on time) and ask me about my day and talk to me about what was happening on the news. She was a really sweet woman and I'm gonna miss her a lot.
Pasapalabra. My new favorite gameshow. Not only was it a good way to practice Spanish, but it was pretty funny most of the time too. My host mom and I would watch that most nights together as well.
The food. I'm not gonna miss ALL Spanish food, but I'm gonna miss the really, really good stuff like Paella, Spanish tortilla and Bocadillos. Bocadillos are like subs, but there isn't anything in America quite like them. From the bread to Jamon Serrano, Bocadillos are different and Ill miss them quite a bit.
Brandy - whenever I got bored or lonely, there was always Brandy roaming around the house. Towards the end of the semester, Brandy and I would take to the streets and I would play fetch with him. If only Maggie would take a page from Brandy's book and learn to like playing fetch.
My other host brother and his family. They were so sweet and nice and I'm going to especially miss Marta. She was such a sweet little girl and funny too. We would sit and practice saying our colors together, or spelling our names. I'll miss her quite a bit.
Above all, I'm really gonna miss all my good friends I made there. They really took me and the rest of our group from HWS under their wings. They were always sure to invite us to whatever they were doing that weekend and would always make sure we had someone to talk to. They were just genuinely good people who enjoyed our company and we enjoyed their company as well. From talking about the NFL or the NBA to playing Rugby with a couple of them, there was always something interesting to do. I'll miss them all: Victor, Luque, Ben, Luis, Guilli, Jorge, Jesus, David, Patricia, Aida, Bustillo, Gumi, Cesar and the countless others that we had hung out with. It was tough saying goodbye to those guys our last night, but hopefully it wasn't a goodbye, only an hasta luego.
So with this final blog entry, I can oficially say that my Spanish travels, for the moment at least, are over. I want to thank everyone who made it possible, mainly my family, and all of you back home while I was in Spain who were thinking about me and supporting me. I learned a whole lot this semester and spent a truly unforgettable time in my life in Spain.
So with that, unless there are any other final questions or concerns that come up that I need to address, TuginSpain has officially come to an end.
Hasta luego...
Friday, December 18, 2009
Friday, December 4, 2009
Sigue Derecho
Ok, so I know it has been awhile since my last update, but I have a couple of good things to talk about that I don´t think anyone back home knows about really.
1. I played in a rugby game!!! It was interesting to say the least. The game started at 4 and I got there at three. Then there was the big identity crisis about how I was gonna get to play because I don´t have a national Id card nor an ID card for Autonoma Madrid. So being the real men of genious this Spanish Rugby team I played for are, decided that they just wouldn´t have me go into the team meeting where they meet the referees and show their ID. So I hid in the lockerroom and ended up being allowed to play. I´m not sure how it all worked out because I kind of stick out when I´m there, but for some reason I got in there.
So I was still a little confused about what exactly the rules are and the strategery of the game, so I just kind of ran around and when I saw a big pile of people ran and dived into the middle of it to make the pile go our way. That was good. But as for the rucks or the racks or whatever they call them, I´m not to fond of. I got absolutely dominated in them, but I think it´s because my support was the most unathletic kid they could´ve possible found in Spain. At least that´s the reason I´m going to tell myself that I didn´t do well in them.
But I played with my buddies I had met who are part of the school of information at Autonoma and we played against the med school team or whatever. We lost pretty handily but it was pretty fun. Although I couldn´t move my neck for the next few days. That was kind of rough.
2. For Thanksgiving our prof. had planned a trip down to Andalucia (Sevilla and Cordoba were the two places we went) and oh man, I love it there. I´m not sure if it´s because I made up my mind before even going there that I was gonna love it or if it was actually love at first visit. You can a lot of similiarities between Sevilla and Morocco. Better said, Sevilla is kind of like a civilized Morocco, although there is still a hefty language barrier because the accent there is roughhh.
Everywhere you went there you saw orange trees hanging around to. But first things first and that´s thanksgiving. We had that Thursday off for Thanksgiving and took the AVE, which is like a bullet train, to get there (it was like 3 hours). We got there and had a dinner planned with students from other various schools that were studying in Sevilla. I think there was like 4o or 50 of them. We ate at an Irish pub and the food was really quite good (although of course there wasn´t enough of it to be actually considered a thanksgiving meal for me) and I never realized how good sweet potatoe is. Oh man. It was fantastic! (keep that in mind mom)
After that we kind of had the afternoon free to walk around and explore and do stuff. I think I napped a lot. But anyways fast forward to the next day..............
I AM A STAR OF ANDALUCIAN TV! We took a tour with this guy who is also a TV host for some station based out of Sevilla and he asked our prof. if it would be ok if he could film us. So there was a camera guy with us all day following us around and they would stop randomly and ask us questions about what we thought about the city. And I was wearing my Hobart football shirt so he asked me about football and then about Soccer and who my favorite team was. Well, to be honest, I don´t care all that much about soccer still but if I had to pick a team it would be Sevilla, so I thought that would be a good answer. But he wasn´t pleased with that and made me say his favorite team, the other team based out of Sevilla, Real Betis. So I´m on Andalucian news saying, BETIS, MUCHO BETIS! (he told me to say that) and who knows what else. So that´s kind of cool.
Other than that, we saw a lot of cathedrals and mezquitas and what have you. I´m really over giant cathedrals. Going to 1 or maybe 2 is nice, but after 6 things get kind of repetitive. Although we did see Christopher Columbus´s tomb I think? So that´s cool?
But anyway, on to the other exciting news.....I met up with Miriam there! (foreign exchange student from Sevilla when I was in high school) So she took me and my buddy Harry out to a Discoteca there for one night and that was really cool. It was interesting to see the differences between discos there and the ones in Madrid. For one, the music they played in Sevilla was so much cooler. Flamenco is huge there, so in the clubs they played a lot of pop/techno/flamenco and that was really cool. Plus, all the girls there can dance flamenco. And dance in general. Like whoa.
Speaking of dancing, we were all going out to see a flamenco show the next night (flamenco is totally awesome by the way). So before leaving Miriam and her friends we told her that and her and all her friends just busted out dancing flamenco in the street it was so cool. They were dancing really good flamenco as well.
The show itself the next night was really awesome. It was in like a hotel lobby.....hard to explain I´ll have to steal some pictures and post them. But it was a really nice atmosphere and the dancing, singing, and guitar playing was absolutely fantastic.
So sorry that this post took so long to get posted, but I´ve had a crazy amount of work to do recently. There might be some things I´m missing so don´t be surprised if I post another update soon.
Crazy to think I´ll be leaving here in about 12 days. Seems like just yesterday I was walking into my host familys house and getting mauled by Brandy. I´m gonna miss a lot of stuff, and I´m gonna try to plan a Super Sunday Spanish fun day where I do as many typical things that one Madrileñan has to do, such as go to the Rastro one more time (if its open), go to Retiro, go to the Prado, eat some Spanish Tortilla or Paella, walk to the end of Metro Line 1, and then hop on the only metro line I haven´t been on yet.....the 11. The 11 is so going down.
Ok, hope all is well and Í´ll be seeing everyone soon!
1. I played in a rugby game!!! It was interesting to say the least. The game started at 4 and I got there at three. Then there was the big identity crisis about how I was gonna get to play because I don´t have a national Id card nor an ID card for Autonoma Madrid. So being the real men of genious this Spanish Rugby team I played for are, decided that they just wouldn´t have me go into the team meeting where they meet the referees and show their ID. So I hid in the lockerroom and ended up being allowed to play. I´m not sure how it all worked out because I kind of stick out when I´m there, but for some reason I got in there.
So I was still a little confused about what exactly the rules are and the strategery of the game, so I just kind of ran around and when I saw a big pile of people ran and dived into the middle of it to make the pile go our way. That was good. But as for the rucks or the racks or whatever they call them, I´m not to fond of. I got absolutely dominated in them, but I think it´s because my support was the most unathletic kid they could´ve possible found in Spain. At least that´s the reason I´m going to tell myself that I didn´t do well in them.
But I played with my buddies I had met who are part of the school of information at Autonoma and we played against the med school team or whatever. We lost pretty handily but it was pretty fun. Although I couldn´t move my neck for the next few days. That was kind of rough.
2. For Thanksgiving our prof. had planned a trip down to Andalucia (Sevilla and Cordoba were the two places we went) and oh man, I love it there. I´m not sure if it´s because I made up my mind before even going there that I was gonna love it or if it was actually love at first visit. You can a lot of similiarities between Sevilla and Morocco. Better said, Sevilla is kind of like a civilized Morocco, although there is still a hefty language barrier because the accent there is roughhh.
Everywhere you went there you saw orange trees hanging around to. But first things first and that´s thanksgiving. We had that Thursday off for Thanksgiving and took the AVE, which is like a bullet train, to get there (it was like 3 hours). We got there and had a dinner planned with students from other various schools that were studying in Sevilla. I think there was like 4o or 50 of them. We ate at an Irish pub and the food was really quite good (although of course there wasn´t enough of it to be actually considered a thanksgiving meal for me) and I never realized how good sweet potatoe is. Oh man. It was fantastic! (keep that in mind mom)
After that we kind of had the afternoon free to walk around and explore and do stuff. I think I napped a lot. But anyways fast forward to the next day..............
I AM A STAR OF ANDALUCIAN TV! We took a tour with this guy who is also a TV host for some station based out of Sevilla and he asked our prof. if it would be ok if he could film us. So there was a camera guy with us all day following us around and they would stop randomly and ask us questions about what we thought about the city. And I was wearing my Hobart football shirt so he asked me about football and then about Soccer and who my favorite team was. Well, to be honest, I don´t care all that much about soccer still but if I had to pick a team it would be Sevilla, so I thought that would be a good answer. But he wasn´t pleased with that and made me say his favorite team, the other team based out of Sevilla, Real Betis. So I´m on Andalucian news saying, BETIS, MUCHO BETIS! (he told me to say that) and who knows what else. So that´s kind of cool.
Other than that, we saw a lot of cathedrals and mezquitas and what have you. I´m really over giant cathedrals. Going to 1 or maybe 2 is nice, but after 6 things get kind of repetitive. Although we did see Christopher Columbus´s tomb I think? So that´s cool?
But anyway, on to the other exciting news.....I met up with Miriam there! (foreign exchange student from Sevilla when I was in high school) So she took me and my buddy Harry out to a Discoteca there for one night and that was really cool. It was interesting to see the differences between discos there and the ones in Madrid. For one, the music they played in Sevilla was so much cooler. Flamenco is huge there, so in the clubs they played a lot of pop/techno/flamenco and that was really cool. Plus, all the girls there can dance flamenco. And dance in general. Like whoa.
Speaking of dancing, we were all going out to see a flamenco show the next night (flamenco is totally awesome by the way). So before leaving Miriam and her friends we told her that and her and all her friends just busted out dancing flamenco in the street it was so cool. They were dancing really good flamenco as well.
The show itself the next night was really awesome. It was in like a hotel lobby.....hard to explain I´ll have to steal some pictures and post them. But it was a really nice atmosphere and the dancing, singing, and guitar playing was absolutely fantastic.
So sorry that this post took so long to get posted, but I´ve had a crazy amount of work to do recently. There might be some things I´m missing so don´t be surprised if I post another update soon.
Crazy to think I´ll be leaving here in about 12 days. Seems like just yesterday I was walking into my host familys house and getting mauled by Brandy. I´m gonna miss a lot of stuff, and I´m gonna try to plan a Super Sunday Spanish fun day where I do as many typical things that one Madrileñan has to do, such as go to the Rastro one more time (if its open), go to Retiro, go to the Prado, eat some Spanish Tortilla or Paella, walk to the end of Metro Line 1, and then hop on the only metro line I haven´t been on yet.....the 11. The 11 is so going down.
Ok, hope all is well and Í´ll be seeing everyone soon!
Friday, November 20, 2009
Meow goes the kitty....
Saturday.
We got ourselves up and ready to go by 10 the next morning. We found a place that was supposed to be awesome to go and visit for awhile called the Cave of Hercules, or the G´rotte d´Hercule. Something like that. Anyway, we got old frenchy to give us a ride out there and to come back and pick us up that night at the same spot around 5. We got there around 11 a.m. so that means for all you math majors out there we had 6 hours to kill.
Anyways, take a look at the pictures if you haven´t by now. The cave of Hercules is a cave that has the shape of Africa, more or less, carved out naturally in it. It´s really pretty down there and I think there is a nice picture of Heather Jade and I that we had some nice Spanish ladies take for us.
We went down into the cave and spent a lot of time looking at some of the little souveniers they had for sale. We then just kind of cruised around that area looking at random stuff.
That whole area, right on the coast of the Pacific was absolutely beautiful. They had a bunch of cafes/restaurants built into the sides of the caverns with a view of the ocean and it was just amazing. Around this time we decided to try and find some lunch.
We figured seeing as that between the three of us we're all very capable of speaking Spanish and more or less able to speak English, that we could find someway to get some food. But alas, all of the restaurants looking out over the ocean had waiters that only spoke french or arabic. And of course, no menus.
Eventually we found some place that had a guy that spoke a little spanish and we ordered a little bit of food. They tried to get us to buy some seafoody looking stuff but.....I wasn't sold that I wouldn't end up dead after eating it. So I got some french fries that were fantastic and the girls got a salady thing of tuna corn onion something or another. It was interesting.
After that we decided we would try to go see the lighthouse, although we didn't want to pay for a taxi. We weren't exactly sure how far away it was but we figured we'd walk it out. Oh were we mistaken.
We walked down the road in the general direction that we thought it was (we were right) for awhile. (By the way, the whole time I was just thinking, "Wow, I'm walking down a road in Africa. Neat.") We then stopped and asked a policeman for directions and he told us to cut down through a ditch more or less and walk along the ocean, it'd be faster. So that we did. It was kind of neat because it really reminded me of stuff Doug and I would do when we were younger out back at his house. We had to cut down through a slopey hill with a bunch of mud and a tiny stream at the bottom. Wasn't too bad - Jade only lost one sandal.
So we walked down the beach for awhile, played in the sand and found some seashells. Pretty nice. After about 45 minutes of this, we decided to give up on the lighthouse. We found a path back up the hill more or less. It was more like a sandy mountain that we had to hike. Thank goodness my football coaches never saw this because we would definitely be running that in the Springtime. That was a tough trek back up. But I digress....
Anyway after that we just went back to the Cave and then went up and sat at a cafe and watched the waves come into the shore. Pretty nice. Our taxista arrived right on time for us and we headed back to the hotel.
At the hotel we did some reading that our prof. had assigned (I think there are some pictures of us reading haha) and got ready to go out for dinner. We went to a cafe where yet again, no Spanish was spoken. But by this point we had learned just enough French to know what some foods were. So I ended up ordering some type of pizza...it was pretty good. The pizza is flatbread and without any tomato sauce. I had some type of sausage type beef on it and a little chicken. It was pretty good....but they gave a hot sauce as a side condiment and it was FANTASTIC. Not too hot and a nice flavor to it. The ketchup, however, leaves a lot to be desired. In fact, none of the Ketchup here is any good. I miss that.
Anyway, I think I have neglected to mention the population of cats in Morocco. I think if I had to guess I would say there are 20572509275 cats to ever 1 person. Absolutely unreal. They are everywhere. I was eating dinner at the restaurant that night and a cat came in through the window unnoticed by anyone. Sat right next to me for God knows how long. It wasn't until it's tail touched me and I nearly had a heart attack that I noticed.
Also, if you'll notice in a lot of the pictures of me, especially the ones in the museum, my hand doesn't leave my pocket. It's gripping that wallet the whole time. I wasn't trusting anybody. Even in the taxis that wallet was in my hand.
Also, in the airport, I met a bunch of kids from Syracuse. One of them is good friends with a kid I met back in Young Scholars Program in seventh grade. Crazy. What a small world it is...
Well, sorry to be so anti-climactic but there really wasn't much action after that first day. However, I am alive and that is what matters. I'm glad I went to Morocco.....but I'll manage if my live travels don't bring me back there again for a long, long, long, long time.
Next update....Rugby game???
That whole area, right on the coast of the Pacific was absolutely beautiful. They had a bunch of cafes/restaurants built into the sides of the caverns with a view of the ocean and it was just amazing. Around this time we decided to try and find some lunch.
We figured seeing as that between the three of us we're all very capable of speaking Spanish and more or less able to speak English, that we could find someway to get some food. But alas, all of the restaurants looking out over the ocean had waiters that only spoke french or arabic. And of course, no menus.
Eventually we found some place that had a guy that spoke a little spanish and we ordered a little bit of food. They tried to get us to buy some seafoody looking stuff but.....I wasn't sold that I wouldn't end up dead after eating it. So I got some french fries that were fantastic and the girls got a salady thing of tuna corn onion something or another. It was interesting.
After that we decided we would try to go see the lighthouse, although we didn't want to pay for a taxi. We weren't exactly sure how far away it was but we figured we'd walk it out. Oh were we mistaken.
We walked down the road in the general direction that we thought it was (we were right) for awhile. (By the way, the whole time I was just thinking, "Wow, I'm walking down a road in Africa. Neat.") We then stopped and asked a policeman for directions and he told us to cut down through a ditch more or less and walk along the ocean, it'd be faster. So that we did. It was kind of neat because it really reminded me of stuff Doug and I would do when we were younger out back at his house. We had to cut down through a slopey hill with a bunch of mud and a tiny stream at the bottom. Wasn't too bad - Jade only lost one sandal.
So we walked down the beach for awhile, played in the sand and found some seashells. Pretty nice. After about 45 minutes of this, we decided to give up on the lighthouse. We found a path back up the hill more or less. It was more like a sandy mountain that we had to hike. Thank goodness my football coaches never saw this because we would definitely be running that in the Springtime. That was a tough trek back up. But I digress....
Anyway after that we just went back to the Cave and then went up and sat at a cafe and watched the waves come into the shore. Pretty nice. Our taxista arrived right on time for us and we headed back to the hotel.
At the hotel we did some reading that our prof. had assigned (I think there are some pictures of us reading haha) and got ready to go out for dinner. We went to a cafe where yet again, no Spanish was spoken. But by this point we had learned just enough French to know what some foods were. So I ended up ordering some type of pizza...it was pretty good. The pizza is flatbread and without any tomato sauce. I had some type of sausage type beef on it and a little chicken. It was pretty good....but they gave a hot sauce as a side condiment and it was FANTASTIC. Not too hot and a nice flavor to it. The ketchup, however, leaves a lot to be desired. In fact, none of the Ketchup here is any good. I miss that.
Anyway, I think I have neglected to mention the population of cats in Morocco. I think if I had to guess I would say there are 20572509275 cats to ever 1 person. Absolutely unreal. They are everywhere. I was eating dinner at the restaurant that night and a cat came in through the window unnoticed by anyone. Sat right next to me for God knows how long. It wasn't until it's tail touched me and I nearly had a heart attack that I noticed.
Also, if you'll notice in a lot of the pictures of me, especially the ones in the museum, my hand doesn't leave my pocket. It's gripping that wallet the whole time. I wasn't trusting anybody. Even in the taxis that wallet was in my hand.
Also, in the airport, I met a bunch of kids from Syracuse. One of them is good friends with a kid I met back in Young Scholars Program in seventh grade. Crazy. What a small world it is...
Well, sorry to be so anti-climactic but there really wasn't much action after that first day. However, I am alive and that is what matters. I'm glad I went to Morocco.....but I'll manage if my live travels don't bring me back there again for a long, long, long, long time.
Next update....Rugby game???
Hola Coca Cola
Ok so to make up for not making the second part of my Moroccan adventures quick enough, I stole a bunch of pictures from Heather.
http://community.webshots.com/user/tugboat424?vhost=community
http://community.webshots.com/user/tugboat424?vhost=community
Sunday, November 15, 2009
My hand is finally out of my pocket....
Holy cow. So where to begin?
Well, as I think I have stated before, I spent Most of Friday, all Saturday, and half of Sunday in Morocco. I knew it was gonna be different from Madrid, not only because it's a different country, but because it 's a different continent as well. Morocco is an African/Arab country. Very, very different.
I went to Morocco with two friends from my school, Jade and Heather, and we met up with a couple of other kids from the Suffolk program that we knew as well along the trip, however we stayed in different hotels. We got to Morocco at like, 1ish or 12ish on friday, and had to hail down a taxi to go to our hotel.
First off I guess it is important to mention that we had to exchange our money to their currency, which is durkham (sp?). 10 dh is roughly equivalent to 1 euro. So that was all fine and dandy, I exchanged 5o euro to start with and went from there.
Anyways, we hailed down a taxi driver, who spoke english/spanish for the most part and had him take us to our hotel (we had no idea how lucky we were at that point to have found an english/spanish speaking driver). He charged us 100 dh (10 euro) for the ride. We figured that sounded fine, plopped over the money, and then let him take us allllll the way to our hotel, all of about 3km to our hotel. That was when we realized that we had been had. We had no idea how close the hotel was to the airport...that sly taxista!! Taking advantage of us poor Americans like that. But don't worry...there were plenty more opportunities still for the Moroccans to have their way with us.
Speaking of taxi's....first off, none of the seatbelts worked. Second off, every front seat that I sat in throughout the time was broken. Third off...what the heck are the rules of the road there?????? Our initial taxi driver thought it seemed like a good idea to travel at about 10000 kilometers per hovering over the median about 2 feet behind a truck that was loaded down with logs, without it's back end up and none of the logs strapped in. Remember, please, that seatbelts were not an option. I thought people were kind of crazy driving in Madrid but Moroccans put them to shame...I really didn't see much rhyme or reason as to how the roads wee put together or what the rules of the road were there. Pretty much every car for themselves. I saw everything on the roads in Morocco as well...all types of vehicles/animals. You were about as likely to find someone staying in there lane and driving like a sane person as you were to see a truck with it's back loaded with logs 2 feet in front of your face, another car hurtling at you in the same lane, a pack of camels hogging up the shoulder of the road, taxi drivers stopping in the middle of the road to yell at each other (all taxistas know each other in morocco too...kind of bizarre), a backhoe speeding down the freeway, and a tricked out beige colored car that looked like it belongs in the fast and the furious. I saw all sorts of things on those roads. In fact, I think I saw some transformers as well.
But anyway, we got to the hotel (really nice) and found some nice, english speaking ladies at the front desk. Got checked in and everything, and decided to go check out an arabic museum there, rock the casbah, and check out the market. So we had the hotel call a taxi for us to bring us to the museum area.
Our Taxi driver seemed like a nice guy...except I have no idea what he was saying or who he was because he only spoke Arabic and French.French is the dominant second language there behind Arabic. Not a whole lot of Spanish going on there or English for that matter. So we had the hotel receptionist tell him where to take us. And the price we paid was 150 dh to get to the museum We figured everything would be alright....but oh, we were mistaken.
First off, this was when we realized how hard we had been had on our initial taxi ride. The ride that ole no Spanglish gave us was about 30 minutes. So from our two taxi rides, we had no idea where to begin haggling at. 150 for 30 minutes, and 100 for about 5 minutes. We had no idea WHERE They were coming from now.
But anyways, we get to the area we are supposed to, and our taxista stops someone and asks for specific directions. This is when we met our best buddy Abdul, and this is also the point where my hand didn't let go of my wallet or leave my pocket for that matter (more on that laterish)
Anyway, Abdul told the taxista not to worry and that he'd take us there (this is what I'm guessing they were saying since I'm only partially fluent in Arabic now). We thought when we got out of the taxi that the museum was right there, but we were sadly mistaken. We found out Abdul wanted to be our tour guide, and by that point, our taxista was gone, and we had no idea where we were. So basically, we were in Abduls grimy hands from that point on. He gave us a nice tour of the casbah I guess, although I couldn't enjoy any of it because I just kept thinking, "sweet, we're lost in Morocco with this Abdul who is missing most of his teeth, yet seems to be chewing something because food keeps flying out of his mouth...at least I hope it's food and not tooth decay...I wonder how much he is gonna try to charge us". Anyway, we eventually got to the museum and told us his magical student price for us....only 10 euro per person! Oh Abdul, you SWEETHEART! 10 euoro only!? FANTASTIC! Heather, Jade and I had a little powow, and seeing as we wouldn't have made it to the museum without him (although later we did realize that he made the taxi driver stop, and then forced us to use him to get to the museum) we decided to give him 5 euro altogether. He wasn't too happy about that. I should've told him he can go and complain to the "tourism office" that he told us he worked for...but that probably wouldn't have been a great idea so I'm glad I didn't.
Anywho, we were all kind of shaken up after that. My hand was clenching my wallet from then on out because I officially didn't trust a soul in the country after that point. I was about to throw a right hook at an old lady who was looking at me funny in the museum cause I thought she was gonna try and pickpocket me. Needless to say, I was a tad paranoid.
Anywho, we had a new gameplan. We knew that we were gonna run into people who were gonna try to be our "guides" like Abdul, so we were gonna either say nothing, so they couldn't figure out where we were from or anything and just ignore them, or else we were gonna say we spoke German, because we were fairly confident none of them would speak German. So we went to these cliffs to take pictures and there were some really young, cute boys who kept saying hello in all these different languages to try and get us to speak to them. I mean these kids had to be like 5 years old. It was tough not to talk to them. At one point they thought it might work if they started calling Jade and Heather beautiful "Hello madame, you are very beautifulll". So funny. Then on the way back the girls got heckled in Spanish, but we kept to our guns and just kept walking.
We went down to the marketplace next and looked around. We were pretty dejected at this point and wanted to just leave, but then an early Christmas miracle happened. We haggled with some street vendors and got some really good deals on things. For example, Jade saw a really pretty necklace, but it was marked up to 650 dh (65 euro). Now, we already knew that things were marked up crazy and you had to haggle in the market, but this was an epic job done by Jade. She got that 650 dh necklace for 10o dh (1o euro). I got some things, Heather got some things (all bargained down) and we left the market and took a taxi ride home. Our taxi driver on the way home was interesting I guess....although I'm not sure he spoke any language. We gesticulated a lot like cavemen trying to come to a price for the ride back, lots of grunts took place. But eventually it worked out, and he brought us back to our hotel.
We didn't really eat anything out the first day there, we all had brought plenty of little snack things that we didn't need to at least the first night. So we went to bed that night feeling ok about ourselves...we knew now how to haggle and were determined not to be taken advantage of again.
However...we still had a day and a half left in Morocco? Would everything work out ok, or would we be had again?
(this has been a long post, I'll update tomorrow about the rest)
TO BE CONTINUED
Cave of Hercules, pictures, food, sneaky kitties, beach.
Well, as I think I have stated before, I spent Most of Friday, all Saturday, and half of Sunday in Morocco. I knew it was gonna be different from Madrid, not only because it's a different country, but because it 's a different continent as well. Morocco is an African/Arab country. Very, very different.
I went to Morocco with two friends from my school, Jade and Heather, and we met up with a couple of other kids from the Suffolk program that we knew as well along the trip, however we stayed in different hotels. We got to Morocco at like, 1ish or 12ish on friday, and had to hail down a taxi to go to our hotel.
First off I guess it is important to mention that we had to exchange our money to their currency, which is durkham (sp?). 10 dh is roughly equivalent to 1 euro. So that was all fine and dandy, I exchanged 5o euro to start with and went from there.
Anyways, we hailed down a taxi driver, who spoke english/spanish for the most part and had him take us to our hotel (we had no idea how lucky we were at that point to have found an english/spanish speaking driver). He charged us 100 dh (10 euro) for the ride. We figured that sounded fine, plopped over the money, and then let him take us allllll the way to our hotel, all of about 3km to our hotel. That was when we realized that we had been had. We had no idea how close the hotel was to the airport...that sly taxista!! Taking advantage of us poor Americans like that. But don't worry...there were plenty more opportunities still for the Moroccans to have their way with us.
Speaking of taxi's....first off, none of the seatbelts worked. Second off, every front seat that I sat in throughout the time was broken. Third off...what the heck are the rules of the road there?????? Our initial taxi driver thought it seemed like a good idea to travel at about 10000 kilometers per hovering over the median about 2 feet behind a truck that was loaded down with logs, without it's back end up and none of the logs strapped in. Remember, please, that seatbelts were not an option. I thought people were kind of crazy driving in Madrid but Moroccans put them to shame...I really didn't see much rhyme or reason as to how the roads wee put together or what the rules of the road were there. Pretty much every car for themselves. I saw everything on the roads in Morocco as well...all types of vehicles/animals. You were about as likely to find someone staying in there lane and driving like a sane person as you were to see a truck with it's back loaded with logs 2 feet in front of your face, another car hurtling at you in the same lane, a pack of camels hogging up the shoulder of the road, taxi drivers stopping in the middle of the road to yell at each other (all taxistas know each other in morocco too...kind of bizarre), a backhoe speeding down the freeway, and a tricked out beige colored car that looked like it belongs in the fast and the furious. I saw all sorts of things on those roads. In fact, I think I saw some transformers as well.
But anyway, we got to the hotel (really nice) and found some nice, english speaking ladies at the front desk. Got checked in and everything, and decided to go check out an arabic museum there, rock the casbah, and check out the market. So we had the hotel call a taxi for us to bring us to the museum area.
Our Taxi driver seemed like a nice guy...except I have no idea what he was saying or who he was because he only spoke Arabic and French.French is the dominant second language there behind Arabic. Not a whole lot of Spanish going on there or English for that matter. So we had the hotel receptionist tell him where to take us. And the price we paid was 150 dh to get to the museum We figured everything would be alright....but oh, we were mistaken.
First off, this was when we realized how hard we had been had on our initial taxi ride. The ride that ole no Spanglish gave us was about 30 minutes. So from our two taxi rides, we had no idea where to begin haggling at. 150 for 30 minutes, and 100 for about 5 minutes. We had no idea WHERE They were coming from now.
But anyways, we get to the area we are supposed to, and our taxista stops someone and asks for specific directions. This is when we met our best buddy Abdul, and this is also the point where my hand didn't let go of my wallet or leave my pocket for that matter (more on that laterish)
Anyway, Abdul told the taxista not to worry and that he'd take us there (this is what I'm guessing they were saying since I'm only partially fluent in Arabic now). We thought when we got out of the taxi that the museum was right there, but we were sadly mistaken. We found out Abdul wanted to be our tour guide, and by that point, our taxista was gone, and we had no idea where we were. So basically, we were in Abduls grimy hands from that point on. He gave us a nice tour of the casbah I guess, although I couldn't enjoy any of it because I just kept thinking, "sweet, we're lost in Morocco with this Abdul who is missing most of his teeth, yet seems to be chewing something because food keeps flying out of his mouth...at least I hope it's food and not tooth decay...I wonder how much he is gonna try to charge us". Anyway, we eventually got to the museum and told us his magical student price for us....only 10 euro per person! Oh Abdul, you SWEETHEART! 10 euoro only!? FANTASTIC! Heather, Jade and I had a little powow, and seeing as we wouldn't have made it to the museum without him (although later we did realize that he made the taxi driver stop, and then forced us to use him to get to the museum) we decided to give him 5 euro altogether. He wasn't too happy about that. I should've told him he can go and complain to the "tourism office" that he told us he worked for...but that probably wouldn't have been a great idea so I'm glad I didn't.
Anywho, we were all kind of shaken up after that. My hand was clenching my wallet from then on out because I officially didn't trust a soul in the country after that point. I was about to throw a right hook at an old lady who was looking at me funny in the museum cause I thought she was gonna try and pickpocket me. Needless to say, I was a tad paranoid.
Anywho, we had a new gameplan. We knew that we were gonna run into people who were gonna try to be our "guides" like Abdul, so we were gonna either say nothing, so they couldn't figure out where we were from or anything and just ignore them, or else we were gonna say we spoke German, because we were fairly confident none of them would speak German. So we went to these cliffs to take pictures and there were some really young, cute boys who kept saying hello in all these different languages to try and get us to speak to them. I mean these kids had to be like 5 years old. It was tough not to talk to them. At one point they thought it might work if they started calling Jade and Heather beautiful "Hello madame, you are very beautifulll". So funny. Then on the way back the girls got heckled in Spanish, but we kept to our guns and just kept walking.
We went down to the marketplace next and looked around. We were pretty dejected at this point and wanted to just leave, but then an early Christmas miracle happened. We haggled with some street vendors and got some really good deals on things. For example, Jade saw a really pretty necklace, but it was marked up to 650 dh (65 euro). Now, we already knew that things were marked up crazy and you had to haggle in the market, but this was an epic job done by Jade. She got that 650 dh necklace for 10o dh (1o euro). I got some things, Heather got some things (all bargained down) and we left the market and took a taxi ride home. Our taxi driver on the way home was interesting I guess....although I'm not sure he spoke any language. We gesticulated a lot like cavemen trying to come to a price for the ride back, lots of grunts took place. But eventually it worked out, and he brought us back to our hotel.
We didn't really eat anything out the first day there, we all had brought plenty of little snack things that we didn't need to at least the first night. So we went to bed that night feeling ok about ourselves...we knew now how to haggle and were determined not to be taken advantage of again.
However...we still had a day and a half left in Morocco? Would everything work out ok, or would we be had again?
(this has been a long post, I'll update tomorrow about the rest)
TO BE CONTINUED
Cave of Hercules, pictures, food, sneaky kitties, beach.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
So hopefully next update, I can talk some more Rugby, maybe another thing or two about Barcelona, and then some things about Milk, Bathrooms, Cereal and Light switches.
Ok so let's see what we have here to talk about...
One of the things I miss the most in the US is the milk. My word. One of my first days here my host mom mentioned something about how her son likes to keep milk in the fridge, and said it in a way that made it sound abnormal. Plus the milk is super thick too, although not as bad as in Germany (sorry Julia haha). And I love milk. And I miss drinking a nice cold glass of it. Andy and I are of the same opinion that Skim milk is the best because it's also the coldest. Well my dear friends, the only way to drink your milk cold here would be to drink it while standing inside a freezer. But I usually pour some milk onto my cereal, but then I dump the milk out, because it just hurts my stomach after if I drink it all. So the only real complaint about the food I have here is without a question, la leche.
Next thing on the list is bathrooms. Here, if you go into a public bathroom, all the stalls are like little rooms. They are totally surrounded and closed in. Pretty nice.
However, while I'm all for saving the environment and everything, I'm kind of sick of the lights going out on me in the middle of doing my business. It's like a button you press and the lights stay on for like 2 minutes or so, and then shut off. Well let's just say that caught me by surprise the first couple of times. Plus, being that it is it's own little room it was absolutely pitch black dark. So it took me awhile to find the lightswitch needless to say.
I'll have to take a picture of the lightswitches here too. I have seen these types back in the states, but I haven't seen a single one that is like the ones I am usually used to seeing.
Can't remember what I had to say about cereal. It's pretty good I guess.
Went to another Rugby practice. Still trying to understand what it is I am supposed to do, although we did practice something similar to kickoffs so that I knew enough of. All I know is I push when they tell me too, and I tackle the guy in the other shirt. There is a game tomorrow (Thursday) at 230. However I have class till 330, but there is a chance Ill get out in time to make it. Let's hope so.
I've been to the movie theaters a couple of times recently. I went once with my buddy Harry one weekend night to see Malditos Bastardos. We showed up at like, 945 for a 1015 showing of it to buy our tickets cause we heard we had to get there early to buy them, but we figured that it's been out since the beginning of september so there wouldn't be a big line. Well there wasn't too big a line, but there also weren't any tickets available. Unbelievable. Talk about procrastinating to see a movie, Spain.
So we went back again the next night, even more determined. This time we got there around 9 to buy our tickets. Well in Spanish movie theaters, they give you assigned seats. Pretty good idea I guess. Doesn't make for that awkward 'there aren't many seats but i don't really wanna sit right next to that guy' moment. You sit where they tell you to sit bygolly!
It was in Version Original, so it wasn't dubbed and they talked in English, and it was subtitled in Spanish. However, I forgot how much of the movie was spoken in German and French. So Harry and I were reading a lot of subtitulos. Not really a big deal, but it doesn't do the movie justice the way it was translated into Spanish. Some of the things said in English that I read in Spanish just weren't the same, something was lost in translation there.
It's nice now I can watch a movie in Spanish, as long as there are subtitles, and I can understand just about all of it. However, the next challenge would be to watch a movie in Spanish without subtitles and see how I do.
GUESS WHAT? Got an e-mail from our prof. and said he was gonna take us to the cinema for his cine class to watch Celda 211. It was a prison/drama/action movie. Pretty good. Real hard to understand though, they used a lot of slang stuff and one of the main character's voices was impossible to understand. Smoked one too many cigarettes. I understood a lot of it....but not quite all of it. Still a bit confused about parts. But we'll figure that out tomorrow.
Anyway...Life is going well. Hope America is safe without me for awhile. Take good care of it, and go enjoy a nice glass of cold milk and a PB Sandwich for me (Jelly optional). I go have a nice Bocadillo de tortilla with some nice Madrid water for all of you tomorrow.
Hasta Luego!!!
p.s. any questions you have about Spain, send me an email and ill write about it in my next blog post.
p.p.s. I'm going to Morocco this weekend. Hope I survive.
Ok so let's see what we have here to talk about...
One of the things I miss the most in the US is the milk. My word. One of my first days here my host mom mentioned something about how her son likes to keep milk in the fridge, and said it in a way that made it sound abnormal. Plus the milk is super thick too, although not as bad as in Germany (sorry Julia haha). And I love milk. And I miss drinking a nice cold glass of it. Andy and I are of the same opinion that Skim milk is the best because it's also the coldest. Well my dear friends, the only way to drink your milk cold here would be to drink it while standing inside a freezer. But I usually pour some milk onto my cereal, but then I dump the milk out, because it just hurts my stomach after if I drink it all. So the only real complaint about the food I have here is without a question, la leche.
Next thing on the list is bathrooms. Here, if you go into a public bathroom, all the stalls are like little rooms. They are totally surrounded and closed in. Pretty nice.
However, while I'm all for saving the environment and everything, I'm kind of sick of the lights going out on me in the middle of doing my business. It's like a button you press and the lights stay on for like 2 minutes or so, and then shut off. Well let's just say that caught me by surprise the first couple of times. Plus, being that it is it's own little room it was absolutely pitch black dark. So it took me awhile to find the lightswitch needless to say.
I'll have to take a picture of the lightswitches here too. I have seen these types back in the states, but I haven't seen a single one that is like the ones I am usually used to seeing.
Can't remember what I had to say about cereal. It's pretty good I guess.
Went to another Rugby practice. Still trying to understand what it is I am supposed to do, although we did practice something similar to kickoffs so that I knew enough of. All I know is I push when they tell me too, and I tackle the guy in the other shirt. There is a game tomorrow (Thursday) at 230. However I have class till 330, but there is a chance Ill get out in time to make it. Let's hope so.
I've been to the movie theaters a couple of times recently. I went once with my buddy Harry one weekend night to see Malditos Bastardos. We showed up at like, 945 for a 1015 showing of it to buy our tickets cause we heard we had to get there early to buy them, but we figured that it's been out since the beginning of september so there wouldn't be a big line. Well there wasn't too big a line, but there also weren't any tickets available. Unbelievable. Talk about procrastinating to see a movie, Spain.
So we went back again the next night, even more determined. This time we got there around 9 to buy our tickets. Well in Spanish movie theaters, they give you assigned seats. Pretty good idea I guess. Doesn't make for that awkward 'there aren't many seats but i don't really wanna sit right next to that guy' moment. You sit where they tell you to sit bygolly!
It was in Version Original, so it wasn't dubbed and they talked in English, and it was subtitled in Spanish. However, I forgot how much of the movie was spoken in German and French. So Harry and I were reading a lot of subtitulos. Not really a big deal, but it doesn't do the movie justice the way it was translated into Spanish. Some of the things said in English that I read in Spanish just weren't the same, something was lost in translation there.
It's nice now I can watch a movie in Spanish, as long as there are subtitles, and I can understand just about all of it. However, the next challenge would be to watch a movie in Spanish without subtitles and see how I do.
GUESS WHAT? Got an e-mail from our prof. and said he was gonna take us to the cinema for his cine class to watch Celda 211. It was a prison/drama/action movie. Pretty good. Real hard to understand though, they used a lot of slang stuff and one of the main character's voices was impossible to understand. Smoked one too many cigarettes. I understood a lot of it....but not quite all of it. Still a bit confused about parts. But we'll figure that out tomorrow.
Anyway...Life is going well. Hope America is safe without me for awhile. Take good care of it, and go enjoy a nice glass of cold milk and a PB Sandwich for me (Jelly optional). I go have a nice Bocadillo de tortilla with some nice Madrid water for all of you tomorrow.
Hasta Luego!!!
p.s. any questions you have about Spain, send me an email and ill write about it in my next blog post.
p.p.s. I'm going to Morocco this weekend. Hope I survive.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
LIMPIAR EL RACK
In the words of Elton John...I'm still standing, yeah, yeah, yeah.
First things first: Midterms. They weren't too bad. Except for one. But hey, 3/4 ain't bad right? Hopefully I'll get back the Midterm I think I butchered tomorrow, so that class should be interesting. I should also get my longest paper ever written in Spanish back tomorrow as well I hope (6 pages!) I have to say though, I've never had a week like that back in Hobart. In fact, I think the only time I've ever had a midterm is with the prof. that is here with us now. Every other time I have had a "midterm" I think, it's just been like a normal chapter test, it was just in the middle of the semester kind of. But here, I had four tests all in the same week, and they were all cumulative, so that was a bit different. But I'm still standing.
Next we go on to Barcelona. I went out on Thursday night and stayed up all night in order to catch the bus that was leaving at 6 am. It actually made a lot of sense, because otherwise I would've had to catch a taxi from my house all the way to the University ( I think I live the furthest away from there as anyone) so that would've cost a lot. So instead I went out and walked there with my buddy Harry.
I figured hey, I should be able to sleep most of all the bus ride right? WRONG. I slept casi 3 1/2 hours. That bus was the most uncomfortable bus I have ever been on. The bus to Salamanca, during our first week here, was horrendous as well. Would it kill them to make an at least semi comfortable bus? Not only was there no leg room or body room, but the engine heated up the bus to unbearable temperaturas. Absolutely miserable.
So by the time we got to Barcelona, after that 8 hour ride, I was not too happy. We really didn't do anything that great. Went and saw some interesting architecture by Gaudi - check him out, looks like the dude invented the house that Dr. Seuss would like to live in. Kinda interesting. I really just relaxed a lot in Barcelona. Also, the water there sucks. Madrid water is amazing, Barcelona water is poop.
Also for those of you who know of my bilingualness....I have become even more multi-bilingual! I am now fluent in Catalan, which is the official language of catalunya. It's a mix of Spanish and French and I'm super fluent at it. More so reading than anything else, my speaking of it is a little rusty, but with time, I'll get it.
What else about Barcelona.....hmmmmm.......well, it is not as cool as Madrid. I just wasn't feeling it there. I think the bus ride had a lot to do with it. But hey, I'm still standing.
NEXT, we go on to Rugby. Two of my friends I've met out in Madrid (Alberto or more commonly known as Luque and Victor) asked me to come play Rugby for their team. They play for their university I think, which is the next metro stop down from mine. So I don't wanna brag or anything, but we started out doing one on one tackling drills, and I destroyed a few kids lives. I think their team is pretty piss-poor though so that's not saying much. But I was pretty happy with my performance.
I still don't know any of the rules, and they were speaking to me at about 100 mph in Spanish, so I was a little bit hazy, but I know a lot of pushing of people was involved in my job description. Also, at one point we practiced lifting up a dude to catch the ball when they throw it in from the sidelines, and me and my buddy, Victor, absolutely dominated. The coach guy even said we did it perfect on our second try. The dude we lifted up intercepted the ball from the other team even! Which I think is a good thing?
But anyways, I'm learning the sport and it's pretty fun. I think I did a pretty good job, they were excited to have me there and asked me to come back. They usually practice on Tuesday's and Thursdays, but I have class during practice time on Thursday so I can't go. But my body only hurts a little bit so that's good.
So hopefully next update, I can talk some more Rugby, maybe another thing or two about Barcelona, and then some things about Milk, Bathrooms, Cereal and Light switches.
So after all that, I'm still standing! Until then people, keep it real.
First things first: Midterms. They weren't too bad. Except for one. But hey, 3/4 ain't bad right? Hopefully I'll get back the Midterm I think I butchered tomorrow, so that class should be interesting. I should also get my longest paper ever written in Spanish back tomorrow as well I hope (6 pages!) I have to say though, I've never had a week like that back in Hobart. In fact, I think the only time I've ever had a midterm is with the prof. that is here with us now. Every other time I have had a "midterm" I think, it's just been like a normal chapter test, it was just in the middle of the semester kind of. But here, I had four tests all in the same week, and they were all cumulative, so that was a bit different. But I'm still standing.
Next we go on to Barcelona. I went out on Thursday night and stayed up all night in order to catch the bus that was leaving at 6 am. It actually made a lot of sense, because otherwise I would've had to catch a taxi from my house all the way to the University ( I think I live the furthest away from there as anyone) so that would've cost a lot. So instead I went out and walked there with my buddy Harry.
I figured hey, I should be able to sleep most of all the bus ride right? WRONG. I slept casi 3 1/2 hours. That bus was the most uncomfortable bus I have ever been on. The bus to Salamanca, during our first week here, was horrendous as well. Would it kill them to make an at least semi comfortable bus? Not only was there no leg room or body room, but the engine heated up the bus to unbearable temperaturas. Absolutely miserable.
So by the time we got to Barcelona, after that 8 hour ride, I was not too happy. We really didn't do anything that great. Went and saw some interesting architecture by Gaudi - check him out, looks like the dude invented the house that Dr. Seuss would like to live in. Kinda interesting. I really just relaxed a lot in Barcelona. Also, the water there sucks. Madrid water is amazing, Barcelona water is poop.
Also for those of you who know of my bilingualness....I have become even more multi-bilingual! I am now fluent in Catalan, which is the official language of catalunya. It's a mix of Spanish and French and I'm super fluent at it. More so reading than anything else, my speaking of it is a little rusty, but with time, I'll get it.
What else about Barcelona.....hmmmmm.......well, it is not as cool as Madrid. I just wasn't feeling it there. I think the bus ride had a lot to do with it. But hey, I'm still standing.
NEXT, we go on to Rugby. Two of my friends I've met out in Madrid (Alberto or more commonly known as Luque and Victor) asked me to come play Rugby for their team. They play for their university I think, which is the next metro stop down from mine. So I don't wanna brag or anything, but we started out doing one on one tackling drills, and I destroyed a few kids lives. I think their team is pretty piss-poor though so that's not saying much. But I was pretty happy with my performance.
I still don't know any of the rules, and they were speaking to me at about 100 mph in Spanish, so I was a little bit hazy, but I know a lot of pushing of people was involved in my job description. Also, at one point we practiced lifting up a dude to catch the ball when they throw it in from the sidelines, and me and my buddy, Victor, absolutely dominated. The coach guy even said we did it perfect on our second try. The dude we lifted up intercepted the ball from the other team even! Which I think is a good thing?
But anyways, I'm learning the sport and it's pretty fun. I think I did a pretty good job, they were excited to have me there and asked me to come back. They usually practice on Tuesday's and Thursdays, but I have class during practice time on Thursday so I can't go. But my body only hurts a little bit so that's good.
So hopefully next update, I can talk some more Rugby, maybe another thing or two about Barcelona, and then some things about Milk, Bathrooms, Cereal and Light switches.
So after all that, I'm still standing! Until then people, keep it real.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Bullfighting and Rugby
Ok errybody here we go now....
So, as I mentioned in a previous blog post, I've been invited to play rugby, I've been to a bullfight, and I endured midterms.
Now let's start with Rugby. One of my buddies from the bar we always go to, Ocean, talks about Rugby a lot. He's also a big Buffalo Bills fan. But I digress. He pretty much just came up all excited one night and asked me if I wanted to play Rugby for him. He said he has a team and to show up some Tuesday and we'll play. I couldn't play this week because of Midterms, but I'm gonna go this week hopefully and try to learn. So that's the Rugby story for right now.
BULLFIGHT. I went to a bullfight....and it was awesome. I really like them. Although many Madrilenos don't like them. It's understandable, kind of like a stereotype thing. But anyway, I went to one where they used smaller balls and new matadors. But it was sweet, saw 5 bulls die. One of the guys couldn't complete the final round, which was to Kill the bull as quickly and painlessly as possible. He got pretty much booed out of the place. It wasn't a very high quality bullfight (not that I would know - I could just tell listening to people talk and the fact I knew they were NOOBS) But one dude was really cool. He killed the bull right away both times. Very nice.
The other things I love are some phrases here.....por ejemplo.....TIO (uncle) means dude. I absolutely love that. Also Vale (Bah-lay) means Ok pretty much......Me da igual means it's all the same to me, I just like the way that one sounds. and Claro (Clah-row) which means of course. And the always epic "Tranqui" (short for tranquilo) which you say to someone like, chill man calm down. So I'll probably be using a lot of those terms for a long time, so get used ot it now. In fact, start using them so that way you won't be so annoyed by me. Then of course I've learned all the slang too, but there might be young folks out there reading this, so I don't want to give them any ammunition. But let's just say.....I'm learning it all hahaha. The kind of things they tend to neglect in grammar classes.
I also took my midterms, and I'm pretty confident in 3/4 of them. One of them I had no idea what was gonna be on the test, so I went in pretty unprepared like everyone else, but I guess she graded real easy and everyone got above an 80, so thats good news for me!
Annnnnnnnnnnd tomorrow I'm going to Barcelona on a class trip. It's a 7 hour bus ride (lame) so I'm gonna go and pasar la noche en blanco (stay up all night) so I can sleep on the bus ride. So I'll let you all know how that goes...hopefully I survive.
Alright folks, hope everything is going swell back in the states. But I'm gonna descansar un poquito and then hit up the Madrid nightlife for a while.
Hasta luego!
So, as I mentioned in a previous blog post, I've been invited to play rugby, I've been to a bullfight, and I endured midterms.
Now let's start with Rugby. One of my buddies from the bar we always go to, Ocean, talks about Rugby a lot. He's also a big Buffalo Bills fan. But I digress. He pretty much just came up all excited one night and asked me if I wanted to play Rugby for him. He said he has a team and to show up some Tuesday and we'll play. I couldn't play this week because of Midterms, but I'm gonna go this week hopefully and try to learn. So that's the Rugby story for right now.
BULLFIGHT. I went to a bullfight....and it was awesome. I really like them. Although many Madrilenos don't like them. It's understandable, kind of like a stereotype thing. But anyway, I went to one where they used smaller balls and new matadors. But it was sweet, saw 5 bulls die. One of the guys couldn't complete the final round, which was to Kill the bull as quickly and painlessly as possible. He got pretty much booed out of the place. It wasn't a very high quality bullfight (not that I would know - I could just tell listening to people talk and the fact I knew they were NOOBS) But one dude was really cool. He killed the bull right away both times. Very nice.
The other things I love are some phrases here.....por ejemplo.....TIO (uncle) means dude. I absolutely love that. Also Vale (Bah-lay) means Ok pretty much......Me da igual means it's all the same to me, I just like the way that one sounds. and Claro (Clah-row) which means of course. And the always epic "Tranqui" (short for tranquilo) which you say to someone like, chill man calm down. So I'll probably be using a lot of those terms for a long time, so get used ot it now. In fact, start using them so that way you won't be so annoyed by me. Then of course I've learned all the slang too, but there might be young folks out there reading this, so I don't want to give them any ammunition. But let's just say.....I'm learning it all hahaha. The kind of things they tend to neglect in grammar classes.
I also took my midterms, and I'm pretty confident in 3/4 of them. One of them I had no idea what was gonna be on the test, so I went in pretty unprepared like everyone else, but I guess she graded real easy and everyone got above an 80, so thats good news for me!
Annnnnnnnnnnd tomorrow I'm going to Barcelona on a class trip. It's a 7 hour bus ride (lame) so I'm gonna go and pasar la noche en blanco (stay up all night) so I can sleep on the bus ride. So I'll let you all know how that goes...hopefully I survive.
Alright folks, hope everything is going swell back in the states. But I'm gonna descansar un poquito and then hit up the Madrid nightlife for a while.
Hasta luego!
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Ok so I am going to try and tie up a few odds and ends here of things I think have been blogworthy but that I have left out.
First off, I am pretty sure I am going to die of Lung Cancer before I return to the states. Everyone constantly is smoking here, epsecially if you go to a bar or discoteca or even a restaurant. It's tough just walking down the streets when theyre crowded because chances are youre gonna get stuck walking behind a smoker. My clothes all smell of smoke when I come back too. Everything just smells of smoke, right down to my socks. Real annoying.
One night me and a bunch of friends went to a pub quiz night. That was a lot of fun. It was a really small pub and it was full of people. The guy at the bar read out all the questions in English first, then in Spanish (because we were the only English speakers in there, about 6 of us). He spoke English somewhat I guess.....haha but we had just a good a shot at understanding his Spanish as his English. Our team name was, of course, Los American Idiots. We didn't get last though! We tied for second to last haha. A lot of the questions on there were things we had no shot of knowing that only Europeans would know so all in all not bad. The topics were guess whose face it is (not gonna explain that one), Geography, Music and random. Geography we were the only group who knew what city the Bears played in, so we gave some help out to a couple of groups who were winning haha. Had to make some more friends.
(Oh, and mom, I hate to say it, but one of the questions in the Music topic was about the Everley Brothers. And of course, like always, I said Righteous Brother. Que verguenza. I think the question was something like who sings Bye Bye Love or something like that.)
Speaking of friends, I've made a really neat, different group of friends here. We all go to the Bar Ocean which is north of where I live. There are so many of them, but the main group is Victor, Cesar, Ben, David, Luis, Alberto y Javi. Really cool and a great way to practice our Spanish. Cesar is really nice. He's studying law and plans on going to Boston University next year ot study. But he needs to get a 100 on his English exam to do that, so we're helping him with English and he is helping us with Spanish. His English is already pretty good so I hope he can do it. We also have a poker date setup. We're gonna play "Tejas Jodem" as a Spaniard would pronounce it. Even Cesar was at a loss for way they pronounce Texas the Spanish way, but then just butcher Hold 'em in English.
And my friend Victor and Alberto are huge football fans. And Victor loves the NBA....namely Reggie Miller for some reason. Calls him the 3pt God haha. And they are both really cheering for Brett Favre to win Rookie of the Year. I'm kinda surprised how much they know about the NFL...I mean everytime I go out there they always ask me about it and such. Victor loves Peyton Manning, and Alberto LOVES the Bills. So I got the invite over to Victor's crib to play some Madden and NBA 2k10 and then going to Retiro to throw around the Pigskin. Should definitely be interesting - will need some pictures of that!
Other than that....everything else is pretty much holding steady to form. Leave me a comment on here if you want me to address something that I haven't yet or send me an e-mail.... kevin.matteson@hws.edu Or send me an e-mail and tell me how America is......
Hasta Luego...
First off, I am pretty sure I am going to die of Lung Cancer before I return to the states. Everyone constantly is smoking here, epsecially if you go to a bar or discoteca or even a restaurant. It's tough just walking down the streets when theyre crowded because chances are youre gonna get stuck walking behind a smoker. My clothes all smell of smoke when I come back too. Everything just smells of smoke, right down to my socks. Real annoying.
One night me and a bunch of friends went to a pub quiz night. That was a lot of fun. It was a really small pub and it was full of people. The guy at the bar read out all the questions in English first, then in Spanish (because we were the only English speakers in there, about 6 of us). He spoke English somewhat I guess.....haha but we had just a good a shot at understanding his Spanish as his English. Our team name was, of course, Los American Idiots. We didn't get last though! We tied for second to last haha. A lot of the questions on there were things we had no shot of knowing that only Europeans would know so all in all not bad. The topics were guess whose face it is (not gonna explain that one), Geography, Music and random. Geography we were the only group who knew what city the Bears played in, so we gave some help out to a couple of groups who were winning haha. Had to make some more friends.
(Oh, and mom, I hate to say it, but one of the questions in the Music topic was about the Everley Brothers. And of course, like always, I said Righteous Brother. Que verguenza. I think the question was something like who sings Bye Bye Love or something like that.)
Speaking of friends, I've made a really neat, different group of friends here. We all go to the Bar Ocean which is north of where I live. There are so many of them, but the main group is Victor, Cesar, Ben, David, Luis, Alberto y Javi. Really cool and a great way to practice our Spanish. Cesar is really nice. He's studying law and plans on going to Boston University next year ot study. But he needs to get a 100 on his English exam to do that, so we're helping him with English and he is helping us with Spanish. His English is already pretty good so I hope he can do it. We also have a poker date setup. We're gonna play "Tejas Jodem" as a Spaniard would pronounce it. Even Cesar was at a loss for way they pronounce Texas the Spanish way, but then just butcher Hold 'em in English.
And my friend Victor and Alberto are huge football fans. And Victor loves the NBA....namely Reggie Miller for some reason. Calls him the 3pt God haha. And they are both really cheering for Brett Favre to win Rookie of the Year. I'm kinda surprised how much they know about the NFL...I mean everytime I go out there they always ask me about it and such. Victor loves Peyton Manning, and Alberto LOVES the Bills. So I got the invite over to Victor's crib to play some Madden and NBA 2k10 and then going to Retiro to throw around the Pigskin. Should definitely be interesting - will need some pictures of that!
Other than that....everything else is pretty much holding steady to form. Leave me a comment on here if you want me to address something that I haven't yet or send me an e-mail.... kevin.matteson@hws.edu Or send me an e-mail and tell me how America is......
Hasta Luego...
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
¨Estoy totalmente en desacuerdo con lo que dices, pero defiendo a muerte tu derecho a decirlo¨
Ok so my sister made a request to learn about how supermarkets here work. I´ll just make a quick update about that, and then hopefully on Friday/Saturday I´ll have a longer update with all the other stuff I left out.
The main stores they have, that I have seen, are SuperSol, Dia, Euroski´s, y Ahorra Mas. They are all kind of like a Wegmans/Price Chopper type stores. Everything is pretty much the same as in the states I guess except for the fact that they sell Liquor and about a gajillion different types of Wines there. Bread is big too, everyone always buys a loaf of fresh bread everyday, nice stuff too, for about 48 cents a loaf or less. Pretty crazy. I´m also in love with the drinkable yogurt things they have. Real good. And upon checkout, you have to bag your own groceries. ´Cashiers aren´t as friendly here as they are in the states.
The other big thing they have here are ¨Chinos¨. They are basically like, Kwik-E Mart type places, except, yep you guessed it, all run by Chinese. I don´t know how they do it, but you find about 12 of them within any given block. Something must be working with them for all of them to be open. I´m not the best at estimating here, but if I extrapulate what I have seen in my Barrio here in Madrid, I would guess that there are about 29729057295795729057 Chinos in the country. Kind of handy to have them open if you need a quick snack though I guess.
Ok, until then people, stay real.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoGxtTaQgLA&feature=related
Ok so my sister made a request to learn about how supermarkets here work. I´ll just make a quick update about that, and then hopefully on Friday/Saturday I´ll have a longer update with all the other stuff I left out.
The main stores they have, that I have seen, are SuperSol, Dia, Euroski´s, y Ahorra Mas. They are all kind of like a Wegmans/Price Chopper type stores. Everything is pretty much the same as in the states I guess except for the fact that they sell Liquor and about a gajillion different types of Wines there. Bread is big too, everyone always buys a loaf of fresh bread everyday, nice stuff too, for about 48 cents a loaf or less. Pretty crazy. I´m also in love with the drinkable yogurt things they have. Real good. And upon checkout, you have to bag your own groceries. ´Cashiers aren´t as friendly here as they are in the states.
The other big thing they have here are ¨Chinos¨. They are basically like, Kwik-E Mart type places, except, yep you guessed it, all run by Chinese. I don´t know how they do it, but you find about 12 of them within any given block. Something must be working with them for all of them to be open. I´m not the best at estimating here, but if I extrapulate what I have seen in my Barrio here in Madrid, I would guess that there are about 29729057295795729057 Chinos in the country. Kind of handy to have them open if you need a quick snack though I guess.
Ok, until then people, stay real.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoGxtTaQgLA&feature=related
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Ok so I have some pictures to upload, but not a lot. I'll try to go out and take some of the place I live and put them up in my webshots account or something along those lines ok? Enough death threats, seriously.
Ok so what have I been up to lately? Well, it's been pretty interesting.
So first off, I can't remember how much I've told you all about my family so I'll just do the quick recap. I live with a woman named Maria who is in her 60's and has two sons, one of which lives at home. His name is Manuel and I very rarely see him. He's always out somewhere. Very mysterious man haha, and he is training to become a fireman. He's nice, I just wish I got to talk with him some more. She also has another son who is older, married and has a kid. His name is Fernando and he is really cool and really funny. His daughter's name is Marta and she is really cute and quite funny. Plus she knows all the colors in english! Smart little bugger.
Well, Fernando's wife had another baby this past weekend (forgot the wife's name), and they named the baby Fernando as well. So Marta stayed over here from Thursday-Sunday. We had fun, she was a good person to practice my Spanish with. Although it does bring me back down to earth when I realize a barely 4 year old kid is light years better at Spanish than I am hahaha. Oh well.
So now I'll try to give you a rough recap of my typical day here.
I usually get up whenever I want on school days because I don't have class until 4 at the earliest mon tues weds and 1230 on Thursday. So I usually get up when I want, although I try to get myself up by 9 so I can be in the gym and workout around 10-1130-1145ish. Then I run back home, take a shower and get ready to head up to the school.
I usually try to get to school before 1 or so. I go check all my stuff on the computers/catch up on any work I am missing. Then around 2 usually, I go and get lunch. This is where it gets interesting. Usually once or twice a week I go to La Tienda Verde, which is an AWESOME sandwich shop. You can get a bocadillo, a drink and a bag of chips or a candy bar for less than 4 euros. Pretty sweet deal. If I don´t go there, then I go to Sol, which is a supermarket and can get food for really cheap. Ive become a big fan of DanUp - drinkable yogurt. It costs like 92 cents and fills me up pretty good. And then on Wednesdays, which is my longest day of the week, I go to Scalini´s, which serves a hamburger and fries for 3 euros. Nice deal.
So after that, I get home around 8ish (except Wednesdays) and then watch pasapalabra while my host mom cooks me some cena. The food has been real good, nothing i have refused to eat yet. Other than alcachofas. Not good. But I think she took a hint last time when I ate like, 2 of them then left the rest on my plate. Hey, at least I was trying to broaden my horizons right?
So now on to my classes. Mondays and Wednesdays I take a class with Prof. Perez called ¨Hispanic Culture Today: A Transatlantic perspective¨. Definitely my favorite class, mainly because the prof. is so cool.
Tuesday I have a class with our prof. that came over with us,which is a seminar on contemporary Spain. Wednesdays I have, from 18:00-21:00 a class on Spanish cinema. Kinda cool, we watched some neat Spanish movies.
Then thursday at 1230 I have Madrid, a cosmopolitan city. Quite possibly, this class will be the death of me. I have to write a 6 page paper about my ¨barrio¨(neighborhood), then another 12 page paper about some aspect of Spanish culture. Gonna be the death of me. I can´t even write 6 pages about my neighborhood in English, much less then in Spanish.
Ok I have a bunch more stuff to update, but I´ll save that for later in the week so you have something to look forward to. Thanks for reading my blog, until then, stay classy.
Check out this video in the mean time...Corny I know, but also awesome at the same time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qExd-3oCTl4
Ok so what have I been up to lately? Well, it's been pretty interesting.
So first off, I can't remember how much I've told you all about my family so I'll just do the quick recap. I live with a woman named Maria who is in her 60's and has two sons, one of which lives at home. His name is Manuel and I very rarely see him. He's always out somewhere. Very mysterious man haha, and he is training to become a fireman. He's nice, I just wish I got to talk with him some more. She also has another son who is older, married and has a kid. His name is Fernando and he is really cool and really funny. His daughter's name is Marta and she is really cute and quite funny. Plus she knows all the colors in english! Smart little bugger.
Well, Fernando's wife had another baby this past weekend (forgot the wife's name), and they named the baby Fernando as well. So Marta stayed over here from Thursday-Sunday. We had fun, she was a good person to practice my Spanish with. Although it does bring me back down to earth when I realize a barely 4 year old kid is light years better at Spanish than I am hahaha. Oh well.
So now I'll try to give you a rough recap of my typical day here.
I usually get up whenever I want on school days because I don't have class until 4 at the earliest mon tues weds and 1230 on Thursday. So I usually get up when I want, although I try to get myself up by 9 so I can be in the gym and workout around 10-1130-1145ish. Then I run back home, take a shower and get ready to head up to the school.
I usually try to get to school before 1 or so. I go check all my stuff on the computers/catch up on any work I am missing. Then around 2 usually, I go and get lunch. This is where it gets interesting. Usually once or twice a week I go to La Tienda Verde, which is an AWESOME sandwich shop. You can get a bocadillo, a drink and a bag of chips or a candy bar for less than 4 euros. Pretty sweet deal. If I don´t go there, then I go to Sol, which is a supermarket and can get food for really cheap. Ive become a big fan of DanUp - drinkable yogurt. It costs like 92 cents and fills me up pretty good. And then on Wednesdays, which is my longest day of the week, I go to Scalini´s, which serves a hamburger and fries for 3 euros. Nice deal.
So after that, I get home around 8ish (except Wednesdays) and then watch pasapalabra while my host mom cooks me some cena. The food has been real good, nothing i have refused to eat yet. Other than alcachofas. Not good. But I think she took a hint last time when I ate like, 2 of them then left the rest on my plate. Hey, at least I was trying to broaden my horizons right?
So now on to my classes. Mondays and Wednesdays I take a class with Prof. Perez called ¨Hispanic Culture Today: A Transatlantic perspective¨. Definitely my favorite class, mainly because the prof. is so cool.
Tuesday I have a class with our prof. that came over with us,which is a seminar on contemporary Spain. Wednesdays I have, from 18:00-21:00 a class on Spanish cinema. Kinda cool, we watched some neat Spanish movies.
Then thursday at 1230 I have Madrid, a cosmopolitan city. Quite possibly, this class will be the death of me. I have to write a 6 page paper about my ¨barrio¨(neighborhood), then another 12 page paper about some aspect of Spanish culture. Gonna be the death of me. I can´t even write 6 pages about my neighborhood in English, much less then in Spanish.
Ok I have a bunch more stuff to update, but I´ll save that for later in the week so you have something to look forward to. Thanks for reading my blog, until then, stay classy.
Check out this video in the mean time...Corny I know, but also awesome at the same time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qExd-3oCTl4
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Ok so I'm still alive and things have been going about the same. Still really enjoying it.
Ive gotten into a nice routine here, more used to the whole eating real late at night with a big seperation in there between meals. Last night had some chicken leg things with a bunch of mashed potatoes. Excelente. And tonight I had a paella-ish macaroni and cheese-ish dish, followed by a big ole heaping steak. VERY NICE.
Its nice I just sit and eat and talk with my host mom a lot. I'm also addicted to the game show here - pasapalabra. It's like a word game. I'm not too good at it usually because the guy who runs it talks way too fast because everything is timed, but every once in awhile Ill get one.
I do have to share one story from there that I thought was quite comical. The topic was Usain Bolt. The question was something like "Usain Bolt has stated the only thing he loves more than winning is" (along those lines) and the clue they gave was that the word started with a J. The guy rang in to answer and then everybody just started laughing before the host told him to watch his mouth. So for those of you who know Spanish, hopefully you get it. And for those of you who don't get it, well, maybe I'll tell you when you're older.
Another thing that has really caught my attention here is some of the styles. One of my favorites is this style
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/08/11/article-1043568-023CA21A00000578-35_468x752.jpg
hopefully that link works. If not, google image search High top sandals. They are like, gladiator type things they are wearing here. All the fashionable girls wear them. I half expect to see wings coming out of them like Hermes or whatever that mythological guy was that had wings coming out of his sandals. I'm pretty sure Nike will be coming out with a brand soon. It would be very convenient to have some High-Top Sandals to hoop it up in. I'm sure since those Sandals have
One of the other styles that has caught my attention has been the dreadlocked mullet rat tail. I know it, I didn't think the combination of these three hairstyles was possible either. But somehow, someway, the Spaniards have accomplished the feat. And I'll give them this, the guys who wear that do, wear it in all seriousness. They certainly have some cajones because there is no way they're getting girlfriends in gladiator attire with that hairstyle. Sometimes you won't see all three hairstyles at once, sometimes it'll just be one long rat tail, or sometimes a mullet of dreadlocks. My personal favorite though was the bald-shaved head look with one dreadlocked rat tail coming out at the base of the skull.
So, when I come back tot he states mid-december, don't be surprised to see me on the basketball courts with some new footware (I've decided to call them the Nike Air Romans, unless I get a better suggestion) and a new-do.
Until then, Be eazy ya'll. Maybe in my next post I can update you all about my never ending battle with the metric system in the gym.
Ive gotten into a nice routine here, more used to the whole eating real late at night with a big seperation in there between meals. Last night had some chicken leg things with a bunch of mashed potatoes. Excelente. And tonight I had a paella-ish macaroni and cheese-ish dish, followed by a big ole heaping steak. VERY NICE.
Its nice I just sit and eat and talk with my host mom a lot. I'm also addicted to the game show here - pasapalabra. It's like a word game. I'm not too good at it usually because the guy who runs it talks way too fast because everything is timed, but every once in awhile Ill get one.
I do have to share one story from there that I thought was quite comical. The topic was Usain Bolt. The question was something like "Usain Bolt has stated the only thing he loves more than winning is" (along those lines) and the clue they gave was that the word started with a J. The guy rang in to answer and then everybody just started laughing before the host told him to watch his mouth. So for those of you who know Spanish, hopefully you get it. And for those of you who don't get it, well, maybe I'll tell you when you're older.
Another thing that has really caught my attention here is some of the styles. One of my favorites is this style
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/08/11/article-1043568-023CA21A00000578-35_468x752.jpg
hopefully that link works. If not, google image search High top sandals. They are like, gladiator type things they are wearing here. All the fashionable girls wear them. I half expect to see wings coming out of them like Hermes or whatever that mythological guy was that had wings coming out of his sandals. I'm pretty sure Nike will be coming out with a brand soon. It would be very convenient to have some High-Top Sandals to hoop it up in. I'm sure since those Sandals have
One of the other styles that has caught my attention has been the dreadlocked mullet rat tail. I know it, I didn't think the combination of these three hairstyles was possible either. But somehow, someway, the Spaniards have accomplished the feat. And I'll give them this, the guys who wear that do, wear it in all seriousness. They certainly have some cajones because there is no way they're getting girlfriends in gladiator attire with that hairstyle. Sometimes you won't see all three hairstyles at once, sometimes it'll just be one long rat tail, or sometimes a mullet of dreadlocks. My personal favorite though was the bald-shaved head look with one dreadlocked rat tail coming out at the base of the skull.
So, when I come back tot he states mid-december, don't be surprised to see me on the basketball courts with some new footware (I've decided to call them the Nike Air Romans, unless I get a better suggestion) and a new-do.
Until then, Be eazy ya'll. Maybe in my next post I can update you all about my never ending battle with the metric system in the gym.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Just a couple of things
So there are a couple of random things that I wrote down that I though were blogworthy that I hadn't mentioned yet.
1. I have met some of THEE coolest foreign kids since Ive been here. Suffolk has a wide range of kids who attend it I guess and is pretty well known internationally. Well I certainly never thought I would say this in a million years, but French dudes are infinitely cooler than Spanish dudes. (at least the ones on my trip. Mega-notcool (trying to keep this G rated)). I have met some cool Spanish dudes out and about during the nights though. But the three French kids are really nice. Although, one of them CAUGHT THE SWINE FLU. Yes, that's right everybody. The Gripe A. I guess he's getting better and is gonna start classes again next week.
I roomed with a kid in Salamanca from Egypt who is really chill and I like named Karim. And my buddy from HWS Harry roomed with an Australian who we are pretty close with still. We call him El Relampago (accent over the first A) which means THA THUNDA (from down Unda). There may be a few other foreigners Im leaving out, but they have all been pretty chill (minus the Spanish kids on this trip. And the Armenian)
2. It is tough dealing with money here. I can have access to it pretty easily, but it is deceptive. They give you a coin that is 2 euros. It is very convenient usually....but you also forget that it is worth 2 euros usually and it feels like play money. Thats a tough obstacle to overcome.
3. I ate conejo for the first time here! (rabbit) I had parts that im assuming were the front or back legs....kind of reminded me of chicken wings because my host mom put hot sauce on it hahaha. Pretty good and it has no fat at all on it. So i give it a solid 5 thumbs up.
4. I dont know what it is but the stereotype holds up....foreigners love peanut butter cups. My host brother devoured his bag of them. Just mowed them down. My host mom had to call one of her friends who is a stewardess I believe and was in Washington (the state) to pick up some more of them for Manuel. She came back with about 20 different variations of the reese's stuff haha. So if you want to make a foreigner happy, feed them a peanut butter cup.
Alrighty, I guess that is all for right now. I need to descansar so I have enough energy to stay out until 6 am. Hey, when in Spain right?
1. I have met some of THEE coolest foreign kids since Ive been here. Suffolk has a wide range of kids who attend it I guess and is pretty well known internationally. Well I certainly never thought I would say this in a million years, but French dudes are infinitely cooler than Spanish dudes. (at least the ones on my trip. Mega-notcool (trying to keep this G rated)). I have met some cool Spanish dudes out and about during the nights though. But the three French kids are really nice. Although, one of them CAUGHT THE SWINE FLU. Yes, that's right everybody. The Gripe A. I guess he's getting better and is gonna start classes again next week.
I roomed with a kid in Salamanca from Egypt who is really chill and I like named Karim. And my buddy from HWS Harry roomed with an Australian who we are pretty close with still. We call him El Relampago (accent over the first A) which means THA THUNDA (from down Unda). There may be a few other foreigners Im leaving out, but they have all been pretty chill (minus the Spanish kids on this trip. And the Armenian)
2. It is tough dealing with money here. I can have access to it pretty easily, but it is deceptive. They give you a coin that is 2 euros. It is very convenient usually....but you also forget that it is worth 2 euros usually and it feels like play money. Thats a tough obstacle to overcome.
3. I ate conejo for the first time here! (rabbit) I had parts that im assuming were the front or back legs....kind of reminded me of chicken wings because my host mom put hot sauce on it hahaha. Pretty good and it has no fat at all on it. So i give it a solid 5 thumbs up.
4. I dont know what it is but the stereotype holds up....foreigners love peanut butter cups. My host brother devoured his bag of them. Just mowed them down. My host mom had to call one of her friends who is a stewardess I believe and was in Washington (the state) to pick up some more of them for Manuel. She came back with about 20 different variations of the reese's stuff haha. So if you want to make a foreigner happy, feed them a peanut butter cup.
Alrighty, I guess that is all for right now. I need to descansar so I have enough energy to stay out until 6 am. Hey, when in Spain right?
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Procrastinating
Well, I probably should be reading right now, but I haven't updated this in awhile and I have done some at least semi interesting things I think.
First and foremost, I joined a gym. It's a gym that is literally a 30 second walk from my house and its pretty upscale....it has a pool and stuff and about a gajillion classes that they do everyday. It was a little bit more than I was hoping to pay, but the convenience of it will pay itself off probably anyway.
The gym itself is very nice....but there isn't much room and the whole system is a lot different than what I am used to. First off, everything is in Kilograms there. So they don't have the big 45 lb. plates but instead the biggest they have is 20 kg. plates. A little bizarre. I need to print off a conversion chart so I can figure out what it is im doing. Plus, the bar is super tiny, I am gonna guess it ways about 25 pounds in the US. Its going to take some getting used to, and I am gonna have to work it around my schedule, but once I get it all figured out I am sure it will be fine.
Finally, it has cooled off, and even rained a little bit! I can actually use a blanket at night, which is nice.
Classes have been ok I guess. I take two classes with our professor who accompanied us on our trip, and 2 classes with random professors. One of them seems like a pretty chill dude, but the other one does not seem too nice, although I did make her laugh the first day, so maybe that's a good thing. Unless she is someone who doesn't like to laugh. Then that could be trouble....But in that class we're going ot be going on a lot of field trips and things so it should be interesting and a bit easier dealing with her rather than her drilling us in our classroom all the time.
I actually have two field trips on Thursday, back to back. We're going to some museums I guess. The first museum trip of about a hundred to come I'm guessing.
I've really enjoyed just about everything that my host mom has made, but I am always surprised by the bread selection that we have. I'm not sure if there is some pattern to it that I am missing, or if it is completely random, but somedays we get bread that is hard as a brick, other days we get soft presliced italian bread, other days we get very wide semi-hard loaves of bread and on and on. I think we've had about 10 different types of bread since I've been here. They have all been interesting in some way or another.
Had spaghetti for the first time too. It was very good, of course not as good as my mom's, but good. The sauce was a lot different. It was a meat sauce, but tasted much more like chili than any spaghetti sauce I had had before. Quite pleasurable to me.
I am sure there are things that I have left out but if you have questions for me just ask and Ill do my best. Until then, I have some serious reading to do. Peace out errybody.
First and foremost, I joined a gym. It's a gym that is literally a 30 second walk from my house and its pretty upscale....it has a pool and stuff and about a gajillion classes that they do everyday. It was a little bit more than I was hoping to pay, but the convenience of it will pay itself off probably anyway.
The gym itself is very nice....but there isn't much room and the whole system is a lot different than what I am used to. First off, everything is in Kilograms there. So they don't have the big 45 lb. plates but instead the biggest they have is 20 kg. plates. A little bizarre. I need to print off a conversion chart so I can figure out what it is im doing. Plus, the bar is super tiny, I am gonna guess it ways about 25 pounds in the US. Its going to take some getting used to, and I am gonna have to work it around my schedule, but once I get it all figured out I am sure it will be fine.
Finally, it has cooled off, and even rained a little bit! I can actually use a blanket at night, which is nice.
Classes have been ok I guess. I take two classes with our professor who accompanied us on our trip, and 2 classes with random professors. One of them seems like a pretty chill dude, but the other one does not seem too nice, although I did make her laugh the first day, so maybe that's a good thing. Unless she is someone who doesn't like to laugh. Then that could be trouble....But in that class we're going ot be going on a lot of field trips and things so it should be interesting and a bit easier dealing with her rather than her drilling us in our classroom all the time.
I actually have two field trips on Thursday, back to back. We're going to some museums I guess. The first museum trip of about a hundred to come I'm guessing.
I've really enjoyed just about everything that my host mom has made, but I am always surprised by the bread selection that we have. I'm not sure if there is some pattern to it that I am missing, or if it is completely random, but somedays we get bread that is hard as a brick, other days we get soft presliced italian bread, other days we get very wide semi-hard loaves of bread and on and on. I think we've had about 10 different types of bread since I've been here. They have all been interesting in some way or another.
Had spaghetti for the first time too. It was very good, of course not as good as my mom's, but good. The sauce was a lot different. It was a meat sauce, but tasted much more like chili than any spaghetti sauce I had had before. Quite pleasurable to me.
I am sure there are things that I have left out but if you have questions for me just ask and Ill do my best. Until then, I have some serious reading to do. Peace out errybody.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Things that I have experienced/learned
I would like to think I have become a little bit more culturally aware since I have come to Spain.
So here is a haphazard list of things that I have experienced and learned:
Sandia (there should be an accent over that I but I'm too lazy to learn how to do it on a laptop) aka Watermelon, is much better in Spain than in the states. I say that because in the states the good part, at least to me, is only the part in the center and far away from the rind. Well, it is fantastic here and juicy all the way up to the rind!
When eating a meal, always keep your hands above the table. At least for me, I'm kind of accustomed to maybe resting one hand on my lap when I'm not using it.
The water in Madrid is unbelievable. About ten times better than any bottled water I could ask for. This is a very useful thing, because it is SUPER dry here. I wake up every morning with terrible cotton mouth and need about 45 glasses of water. My host mom was telling me they haven't had a drop of rain since June!!! And of course there aren't any public water fountains here...I guess they are very frugal about their water and have done a nice job saving it up or something like that.
The weather here has been constantly in the high 80's lower 90's. I've always said I don't enjoy the weather unless I can't walk down the street with a constant glaze of sweat on my forehead or fall asleep at night without waking up soaked in sweat. But hopefully it will cool down soon because these nights are getting to be ridiculous. I'm starting to think it would be better for my health to go out drinking all night every night and sleep until my classes start.
By far however, the most difficult thing for most people seems to be the eating habits. Normally, from what I have learned, is that most people will eat a smallish breakfast (cereal/toast/fruit with coffee) before they go off to work, then eat they're lunch around 2-4. After that they don't have dinner until about 8-10. I think some people are sturggling with the change and I know that one of my buddies has resorted to buying two lunches a day haha. Lucky for me I had already pretty much adapted this eating style for work so Ive done ok I think.
The food here has been really good. Paella is the specialty and my host mom made it for me - AWESOME. Go check it out. I've also had Pato, Cerdo y my favorite, Tortilla de patata. Oh man. So good. I had a Tortilla de patata Bocadillo which is kind of like a sub on a staleish type of roll. It was so good. Definitely my favorite food so far. Mom, if you're reading this, learn how to make this please. It's like a potato omelet. So good.
Ive also had artichokes. Certainly different than I thought they would taste. I asked my mom if they were eggs because they looked like the insides of a hard boiled egg and she just laughed at me. I knew at that point I probably wasnt going to like whatever it was.
I think they're are a few other things I need to put in here that I'm forgetting but I can do that in another post, plus tell you all about Nightlife in Madrid Vs. Salamanca.
Until then, let me know how everything is going back in the states: Kevin.Matteson@hws.edu
So here is a haphazard list of things that I have experienced and learned:
Sandia (there should be an accent over that I but I'm too lazy to learn how to do it on a laptop) aka Watermelon, is much better in Spain than in the states. I say that because in the states the good part, at least to me, is only the part in the center and far away from the rind. Well, it is fantastic here and juicy all the way up to the rind!
When eating a meal, always keep your hands above the table. At least for me, I'm kind of accustomed to maybe resting one hand on my lap when I'm not using it.
The water in Madrid is unbelievable. About ten times better than any bottled water I could ask for. This is a very useful thing, because it is SUPER dry here. I wake up every morning with terrible cotton mouth and need about 45 glasses of water. My host mom was telling me they haven't had a drop of rain since June!!! And of course there aren't any public water fountains here...I guess they are very frugal about their water and have done a nice job saving it up or something like that.
The weather here has been constantly in the high 80's lower 90's. I've always said I don't enjoy the weather unless I can't walk down the street with a constant glaze of sweat on my forehead or fall asleep at night without waking up soaked in sweat. But hopefully it will cool down soon because these nights are getting to be ridiculous. I'm starting to think it would be better for my health to go out drinking all night every night and sleep until my classes start.
By far however, the most difficult thing for most people seems to be the eating habits. Normally, from what I have learned, is that most people will eat a smallish breakfast (cereal/toast/fruit with coffee) before they go off to work, then eat they're lunch around 2-4. After that they don't have dinner until about 8-10. I think some people are sturggling with the change and I know that one of my buddies has resorted to buying two lunches a day haha. Lucky for me I had already pretty much adapted this eating style for work so Ive done ok I think.
The food here has been really good. Paella is the specialty and my host mom made it for me - AWESOME. Go check it out. I've also had Pato, Cerdo y my favorite, Tortilla de patata. Oh man. So good. I had a Tortilla de patata Bocadillo which is kind of like a sub on a staleish type of roll. It was so good. Definitely my favorite food so far. Mom, if you're reading this, learn how to make this please. It's like a potato omelet. So good.
Ive also had artichokes. Certainly different than I thought they would taste. I asked my mom if they were eggs because they looked like the insides of a hard boiled egg and she just laughed at me. I knew at that point I probably wasnt going to like whatever it was.
I think they're are a few other things I need to put in here that I'm forgetting but I can do that in another post, plus tell you all about Nightlife in Madrid Vs. Salamanca.
Until then, let me know how everything is going back in the states: Kevin.Matteson@hws.edu
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
My life so far.....part deux
So the trip to Salamanca was certainly unforgettable, to say the least.
It was about a 2 hour ride or so and we went by some really nice looking country side. One of the first things we did was go on a walking tour and check out the plaza mayor there. It was really beautiful and only about a 10 or so minute walk to be in the heart of Salamanca from the dorms we were staying in there. The tour of the cathedral was pretty boring. After the tour we kind of just roamed around in Salamanca and found our way back to the dorms for free time and dinner.
After dinner was when the fun really started. The nightlife in Salamanca is unreal. The two guys and I (Harry and Francis) went out at around 1030 to scope out the scene and tell the girls where to go when they came out (1130). We ended up finding a bunch of really cheap bars and nobody was in there. Turns out people don't really start going out until 1 which is hugely different than colleges at the US. So when we met up with the girls we already mostly knew where the good spots were to hit.
In one of the clubs I ended up talking to a couple of guys about the music that was being played and became good friends with them. They were Pablo, Alvaro y Vailen (who I called Bailar just to make him mad cause I could never say his name right). They were really cool and I ended up introducing them around and hung out with them until we all left to go back to campus at around 3 am.
The next morning there was a planned excursion out to a "finca" (ranch/farm) and another one to a park to play field games. You would go to one place the first day, and then the next place the other. Well....I wasn't exactly feeling in top-form that next morning, so Harry and I decided to skip it. It wasn't a big deal really.....a lot of people did. We wanted to have a real orientation in the city anyways. Besides, looking back on it, we spoke much more Spanish that the people who went on the orientation trip did anyways. We all went out again the next night and met up with a guy someone else had met on the trip and he took us to another cheap bar that night. His name was Luke and he spoke great english and wants to be a translator. After that we went to another dance club to meet up with Pablo, Alvaro and Bailar. There we had a competition: EEUU vs. Espana. We first had a dance competition, which I firmly believe the US one. We showed them the YMCA and totally blew them away. I then had to arm wrestle Bailar which I easily won, however Alvaro was next. He made me use my left hand though and eventually, after a hard fought match, was able to overtake me. It was a sad day in the EEUU I am sure.
We stayed out quite late that night and once again, Harry and I skipped orientation with some of the other girls, and went out to lunch with our friend Luke. We spent a lot of time teaching each other slang in english/Spanish. It was a really nice deal because it was obvious he wanted to speak english with us, and that we wanted to speak spanish with him. So it all worked out taking turns speaking the other language. It was a nice setup, and while I was kind of upset about not going to the orientation trips, I think I benefited more from staying in Salamanca and learning more about the city speaking a lot of Spanish.
With my next post I will try to update more about people I've met, cultural difference I have learned and that sort of thing.
Until next time....Stay classy America!
In one of the clubs I ended up talking to a couple of guys about the music that was being played and became good friends with them. They were Pablo, Alvaro y Vailen (who I called Bailar just to make him mad cause I could never say his name right). They were really cool and I ended up introducing them around and hung out with them until we all left to go back to campus at around 3 am.
The next morning there was a planned excursion out to a "finca" (ranch/farm) and another one to a park to play field games. You would go to one place the first day, and then the next place the other. Well....I wasn't exactly feeling in top-form that next morning, so Harry and I decided to skip it. It wasn't a big deal really.....a lot of people did. We wanted to have a real orientation in the city anyways. Besides, looking back on it, we spoke much more Spanish that the people who went on the orientation trip did anyways. We all went out again the next night and met up with a guy someone else had met on the trip and he took us to another cheap bar that night. His name was Luke and he spoke great english and wants to be a translator. After that we went to another dance club to meet up with Pablo, Alvaro and Bailar. There we had a competition: EEUU vs. Espana. We first had a dance competition, which I firmly believe the US one. We showed them the YMCA and totally blew them away. I then had to arm wrestle Bailar which I easily won, however Alvaro was next. He made me use my left hand though and eventually, after a hard fought match, was able to overtake me. It was a sad day in the EEUU I am sure.
We stayed out quite late that night and once again, Harry and I skipped orientation with some of the other girls, and went out to lunch with our friend Luke. We spent a lot of time teaching each other slang in english/Spanish. It was a really nice deal because it was obvious he wanted to speak english with us, and that we wanted to speak spanish with him. So it all worked out taking turns speaking the other language. It was a nice setup, and while I was kind of upset about not going to the orientation trips, I think I benefited more from staying in Salamanca and learning more about the city speaking a lot of Spanish.
With my next post I will try to update more about people I've met, cultural difference I have learned and that sort of thing.
Until next time....Stay classy America!
Monday, September 7, 2009
My life so far......
Wow. There have been some ups and downs, some nice personal victories here and a few disheartening mishaps. But overall, I would say I am big time digging the Spanish lifestyle. I'll try to give a quick rundown of the first few days here and then share some things i've either learned, done, or found to be interesting. This is likely to be a lengthy blog post, so bear with me, or take this in segments. And please, don't get used to this!!
I took off from Syracuse on Tuesday and everything went on without a hitch. I was actually sitting right next to a girl who is on the trip with me in the terminal, someone who I actually know pretty well, but we didn't even see each other somehow until we got on the plane. It was kind of nice to have someone go with me to Newark.
Once I arrived in Newark, I met up with a friend of mine from the Rochester area who is going on the trip. Her parents got us into the presidential suite to kill time because we had a 6 hour layover while in Newark. I met up with some more friends in there before we all headed down to the lounge that the airport provided for us 3 hours before our flight with some drinks and snacks. It was nice to catch up with everybody. There are 14 of us on the trip. There were about 5 of them whom I didn't really know at all, and everyone else I was at least on a friendly basis with.
Everyone but one of the guys (I should mention, it is only 3 guys and 11 girls) met up in Newark for the group flight. The flight was pretty miserable - absolutely terribly uncomfortable. However, they did have a pretty solid selection of movies and shows to watch. I watched Ferris Bueller's day off, a few episodes of scrubs, the office and the Simpsons. And I maybe got an hour of sleep in there, but that is questionable.
We landed in the airport without a hitch at around 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning. We went through all of the baggage claim places and customs-type places and met with the Suffolk University people who were picking us up and bringing us back to campus. Once we got to campus, it was pretty much free time/email parents and loved ones time/check out facebook time. My host mom was the first one there for me and I was out of there. I was just a bit taken a back at first because of the greeting: "Dos Besos". When a man first meets a woman in spain, it is customary to kiss the cheeks{more like touching cheeks}. The same goes for woman to woman. As for man to man, it is likely the first time they meet they shake hands, but the closer they become it is up to them to decide on their greeting.
We were on the road after that, and boy howdy, what jump I had to take. I had to go into full on Spanish mode because my host mother doesn't speak any english. And I have to say, I was pretty impressed with my abilities on that ride home. There weren't many uncomfortable silences, and she was able to understand me (despite my errors I am sure). It is about a 35 minute car ride I would say, depending on the traffic, from my house to the university campus. It was nice - although I only had a few hours before I had to return to campus for some orientation things. The apartment is very nice. It is rather small but it suits all their needs just fine - it is very nice. They have a 9 month old German Sheppard-type dog, whose name is Randy. He is nice, just very, very, very hyper. I put some things away, and my host mom told me to stop and take a siesta until it was time to eat and then return to campus.
At this point, I met my host brother, Manuel. He is 21 years old and is studying and training to be a fireman I believe. I have hardly seen him though, our schedules are very different and he is gone very often. He seems very nice, but I have some difficulties in understanding him. I am sure that as I practice my Spanish more, it will get easier.
OH MY, when I first got to the house, my host mother offered to make me a sandwhich, and it ranks right up there with one of the best grilled cheese sandwhiches I have ever had. She barely toasted the bread, put a lot of ham on it, some cheese, and melted this SUPERB kind of butter on it. Oh man, I really hopes she can make that again sometime....
At that point, she drove me back to campus and explained to me how to return to her house. Me, being new to the whole metro stop/bus stop thing was SUPER nervous I was gonna be lost in Madrid. But she drew me a really nice map and I knew if I could get off at the correct bus stop, I would survive. I went through orientation - nothing really noteworthy to say there. Pretty boring with your usual stuff. Around 9 o'clock though, it was showtime. Time for the country boy to face the big bad city all by himself. Also working against me, is the fact that the metro system is out by my house, so I had to do a confusing flipping of changing bus/metro and reading signs telling me what stations were out.
Well let me tell you...I DID IT!!! I dominated the Madrid Public Transit system that first night. Score: Kevin 1 MPTS 0. Got home and my host mom made me some fish and fried up vegetables
The next day was really mainly the same. I got myself up and this time got myself to the campus just fine. Score: Kevin 2 MPTS 0. Things are looking good for me!!! This day was mainly the same boring stuff....orientation what to do and not to do. We were there for most of the day and took a tour of some of Madrid. It was kinda boring, so my group and I split up and did our own thing. Stopped at a street cafe and we all ordered cervezas and just relaxed. After that, I negotiated my way home just fine once again from a DIFFERENT point in Madrid. I'm going strong at this point! Kevin 3 MPTS 0. My mom made me some Paella for dinner that night....and Wow. Unbelievable how good that was. I am not a big fan of seafood but that was just fantastic. Look it up if youre not familiar with it because I don't want to think about food anymore right now. We went out that night to a discoteca until about two in the morning. It was nice going out with a few friends and experiencing some Spanish nightlife.
The next day was our excursion to Salamanca. I had to get to the university by 11 so I left plenty early so that I wouldn't miss the bus. Well......MPTS got a good shot in me that morning. I got on the bus going the opposite way that I wanted to. Score: Kevin 3 MPTS 1. I ended up going the right way eventually and got off at the right metro stop on time, but walked out of the wrong exit so it took me FOREVER to find the university. Darnit....MPTS is catching me. Score: Kevin 3 MPTS 2.
the rest will come at a later date. Hopefully tomorrow, or as internet allows. Keep me up to date on how all of you are doing as well!!!! My email is Kevin.Matteson@hws.edu
I took off from Syracuse on Tuesday and everything went on without a hitch. I was actually sitting right next to a girl who is on the trip with me in the terminal, someone who I actually know pretty well, but we didn't even see each other somehow until we got on the plane. It was kind of nice to have someone go with me to Newark.
Once I arrived in Newark, I met up with a friend of mine from the Rochester area who is going on the trip. Her parents got us into the presidential suite to kill time because we had a 6 hour layover while in Newark. I met up with some more friends in there before we all headed down to the lounge that the airport provided for us 3 hours before our flight with some drinks and snacks. It was nice to catch up with everybody. There are 14 of us on the trip. There were about 5 of them whom I didn't really know at all, and everyone else I was at least on a friendly basis with.
Everyone but one of the guys (I should mention, it is only 3 guys and 11 girls) met up in Newark for the group flight. The flight was pretty miserable - absolutely terribly uncomfortable. However, they did have a pretty solid selection of movies and shows to watch. I watched Ferris Bueller's day off, a few episodes of scrubs, the office and the Simpsons. And I maybe got an hour of sleep in there, but that is questionable.
We landed in the airport without a hitch at around 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning. We went through all of the baggage claim places and customs-type places and met with the Suffolk University people who were picking us up and bringing us back to campus. Once we got to campus, it was pretty much free time/email parents and loved ones time/check out facebook time. My host mom was the first one there for me and I was out of there. I was just a bit taken a back at first because of the greeting: "Dos Besos". When a man first meets a woman in spain, it is customary to kiss the cheeks{more like touching cheeks}. The same goes for woman to woman. As for man to man, it is likely the first time they meet they shake hands, but the closer they become it is up to them to decide on their greeting.
We were on the road after that, and boy howdy, what jump I had to take. I had to go into full on Spanish mode because my host mother doesn't speak any english. And I have to say, I was pretty impressed with my abilities on that ride home. There weren't many uncomfortable silences, and she was able to understand me (despite my errors I am sure). It is about a 35 minute car ride I would say, depending on the traffic, from my house to the university campus. It was nice - although I only had a few hours before I had to return to campus for some orientation things. The apartment is very nice. It is rather small but it suits all their needs just fine - it is very nice. They have a 9 month old German Sheppard-type dog, whose name is Randy. He is nice, just very, very, very hyper. I put some things away, and my host mom told me to stop and take a siesta until it was time to eat and then return to campus.
At this point, I met my host brother, Manuel. He is 21 years old and is studying and training to be a fireman I believe. I have hardly seen him though, our schedules are very different and he is gone very often. He seems very nice, but I have some difficulties in understanding him. I am sure that as I practice my Spanish more, it will get easier.
OH MY, when I first got to the house, my host mother offered to make me a sandwhich, and it ranks right up there with one of the best grilled cheese sandwhiches I have ever had. She barely toasted the bread, put a lot of ham on it, some cheese, and melted this SUPERB kind of butter on it. Oh man, I really hopes she can make that again sometime....
At that point, she drove me back to campus and explained to me how to return to her house. Me, being new to the whole metro stop/bus stop thing was SUPER nervous I was gonna be lost in Madrid. But she drew me a really nice map and I knew if I could get off at the correct bus stop, I would survive. I went through orientation - nothing really noteworthy to say there. Pretty boring with your usual stuff. Around 9 o'clock though, it was showtime. Time for the country boy to face the big bad city all by himself. Also working against me, is the fact that the metro system is out by my house, so I had to do a confusing flipping of changing bus/metro and reading signs telling me what stations were out.
Well let me tell you...I DID IT!!! I dominated the Madrid Public Transit system that first night. Score: Kevin 1 MPTS 0. Got home and my host mom made me some fish and fried up vegetables
The next day was really mainly the same. I got myself up and this time got myself to the campus just fine. Score: Kevin 2 MPTS 0. Things are looking good for me!!! This day was mainly the same boring stuff....orientation what to do and not to do. We were there for most of the day and took a tour of some of Madrid. It was kinda boring, so my group and I split up and did our own thing. Stopped at a street cafe and we all ordered cervezas and just relaxed. After that, I negotiated my way home just fine once again from a DIFFERENT point in Madrid. I'm going strong at this point! Kevin 3 MPTS 0. My mom made me some Paella for dinner that night....and Wow. Unbelievable how good that was. I am not a big fan of seafood but that was just fantastic. Look it up if youre not familiar with it because I don't want to think about food anymore right now. We went out that night to a discoteca until about two in the morning. It was nice going out with a few friends and experiencing some Spanish nightlife.
The next day was our excursion to Salamanca. I had to get to the university by 11 so I left plenty early so that I wouldn't miss the bus. Well......MPTS got a good shot in me that morning. I got on the bus going the opposite way that I wanted to. Score: Kevin 3 MPTS 1. I ended up going the right way eventually and got off at the right metro stop on time, but walked out of the wrong exit so it took me FOREVER to find the university. Darnit....MPTS is catching me. Score: Kevin 3 MPTS 2.
the rest will come at a later date. Hopefully tomorrow, or as internet allows. Keep me up to date on how all of you are doing as well!!!! My email is Kevin.Matteson@hws.edu
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