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.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
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
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