To sum up the last couple weeks in Spain, things have gone from good, to better, to homesick, to shitty, to worse, to drunk (a lot), to good, to shitty. I will get to these all shortly.
In the last week I've seen some marvelous things in Madrid. I have finally become acclimated to the Metro system and know how to walk to pretty much everyone of my friends' houses and to other important places. I've met a lot of cool people since I've been here and enjoy spending time with all of them. Our first week consisted mostly of orientations and getting drunk way too late in areas with transvestite hookers, so it was a good time. This week we started our classes and they seem pretty easy and very similar to the way Albion had classes set up. It takes me about an hour to get to school, so learning to be a commuter student is not exactly the most enjoyable experience in the world, but I am quickly learning to deal with it and have started to enjoy my 45 minute nap on the way to class.
This past Saturday was spent enjoying one of Spain's last festivals of the summer, la Noche en Blanco (white night, and trust me I've made all of the racist jokes about it that could be made). La Noche en Blanco is essentially a night when museums, bars, and concerts are all open till about 6 in the morning. This night, Mariah and I deecided to go to a classical music concert and meet up with friends. However, nothing this night went as planned. We arrived there about 45 minutes early, but could not meet up with our fellow CIEE students so we enjoyed the concert separately. After the concert we headed back to meet our group at our local sangria hangout in Plaza del Sol. After deciding to be cultured and see a Flamenco dance exposition instead of getting black out drunk, we ventured through the streets of Madrid.
This is when things got hairy. Upon turning on the street that the exposition was on, we realized we were on the same street as the biggest event of the night. The world record holder for the farthest and highest tight ropes (something like at the top of a 100 something story building, and crossing the Thames) was set to cross the busiest and biggest street in Madrid. After wading through the crowd of at least 5000 people for 30 minutes, we had only managed to travel a mere two blocks. Our night was on the downslope. After a mental breakdown or two, Mariah and managed to make it out of the clusterfuck that was downtown Madrid and proceeded to duck into the closest dive bar we could find to drink the night away. Eventually we manage to meet up with the rest of our friends to close out the night and caught the first Metro at 6 AM.
In other news, I have received multiple e-mails from Albion and CIEE stating that there have been problems with my tuition payment. My parents are currently working on it, but I don't know if we will have everything done by Friday (the deadline). If we don't have everything finished there is a very good chance that I will be going home this week. Hopefully this doesn't happen.
Alright, time to go take care of my tuition issues and stop stealing this cafe's wireless.
Besos a todos,
Gregorio
Pictures from the last few weeks (some are doubles)
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032058&l=56d29&id=36202877
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032056&l=296df&id=36202877
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment