He tardado.... lo siento!

Back again! Sorry I've taken so long to update, there has been a lot going on. Classes are in full swing, and I have homework in every class every day. It's pretty intenso, although it's not impossible to achieve. During the week, my classes are really early... with the hour commute, I've been waking up so early.

We also had a day trip to Toledo with our group, which means our coordinator and a tour guide came with us. We saw the famous cathedral, along with the many works of the famous painter, El Greco. He was actually greek, but spent a lot of his life living in Toledo. His obras were incredible, and I enjoyed the trip a lot. The only disappointing aspect was that we were there from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., having had an extravagant lunch. However, we were scheduled to see some other museum that was unexpectedly unavailable, and instead of staying to walk around Toledo, we went straight home, having had no time to look around.

Also, this past weekend, we went on a walking tour of the old city of Madrid, the Austrian area. It was a gorgeous day out, perfectly sunny, with everyone flocking to the center of town. There were street violin musicians playing Beethoven, tables of crafts for sale, street artists (the ones that stand really still like statues and when you pay them, they'll suddenly break out of pose and move), and tons of people with their dogs. We had lunch at a posh restaurant, a place I would have never considered.

Let's see... in my clase de arte, we've visited 2 museums so far. We visited the Museo Arquiologico and the Palacio Real, even though the king doesn't actually live there anymore. The Palacio Real is so extravagant and overly ornate (derroche o recargado) that you'd have to spend at least 20 minutes in each room to be able to see every piece of art there is. So awesome!

I also had an intercambio with a Peruvian student who is at Carlos 3 getting her Masters in Pharmacology. However, there seeemed to be a misunderstanding with the word intercambio, because she didn't speak any english! Usually, students speak half in spanish, half in english, so that both can take advantage of a native to practice with. She was under the impression that I would teach her, from scratch, how to speak english. I'm going to try my hardest, and my first tutoring session is tomorrow, even though it's not mandatory that I help her. She was very sweet, offering to cook me a traditional dinner and introduce me to some of her masters' friends.

I've been having a little trouble with some things here or there, so please send me some kind words if you can. I miss you all.