¡Madrileña!

Wow. Only two days have passed and already I have too much to catch up on. Let's see...

On Friday night, a few of us went to the concierto of Amaral, the popular spanish rock-ish band, in Salamanca. Having never heard them before, it was definitely an experience. I enjoyed the music, and everyone knew every word to each song. We went with José, our professor (although he is no longer our professor). Everyone was smoking cigarettes inside the huge venue, even though there were tons of señales saying not to. You could buy tickets to buy refrescos and like any other concert, it was exorbitantly expensive. But after all that jumping around and standing during the concert, I definitely needed to go home. One of my compañeras decided to stay out until 7:30 am partying!! AND she had to pack her suitcase to leave Salamanca by 1:00pm. Nutso.

We left Salamanca, and stopped at the beautiful town of Ávila to have a picnic lunch. It is a walled city on a mountain, and that surely gave us something nice to look at. Meanwhile, everyone was nervous about arriving in Madrid to finally meet our host families. When we got there (as I had already acertained by e-mail) my host family was not actually there because they were in a wedding (boda) of a relative in Italy. So, the helping hand of their household, Maite, and their 18 year old hija came to pick me up. We drove home and I spent an hour or so unpacking into my room.

My cuarto is the perfect size, with enough space for all my things, a table, a small tv, and a twin bed. This weekend, however, has been a bit strange at times. Maite is very agradable but she has a life too, and she can't spend the whole weekend taking me around and welcoming me, like most of the other students' families have done. Instead of taking me out with friends, the daughter, Elena, has been studying crazily for exams, which is totally understandable. I don't have internet on my own computer (I am using theirs, so the pictures will come later) because they forget the password, and I don't have my own key to the apartment until my familia comes home. Kinda stuck in the middle of nowhere. In place of a family activity, I found out where some of the students from my group live, and took a walk.

Sunday, today, I decided to go explore. I found a café chain called Café y Té and went there to write in our mandatory journals, and invited a few of the other students. It was fun planning my way to a shop online and then having to walk there. The lunch Maite made was absolutely delicious... a type of homemade rice with chicken (although NOT a paella), along with cold gazpacho soup and bread. Then this afternoon, we had our group orientation of the train, bus, and metro systems of Madrid, all of which are very modernos. Tons of walking. My apartment is situated next to the Parque del Retiro, which is like the Central Park of Madrid. Sarah and I decided to arrive at the main train station by walking through the park, but we ended up getting lost because it is so big. Qué asco. After our orientation (metros here are like metros in any big city. the end.), a few of us decided to explore another part of the city and grab a caña.

So here I am. Tomorrow the rest of my host family returns from Italy, so I hope to have a lot more interactions. We also start the first day of orientation at the Universidad de Carlos III at the Getafe campus. Exciting stories to come. I hope to soon get used to living in such a big ciudad, Madrid.