This is going to be a short post, without picutres, because I'm tired.

I find it weird that a Spanish woman, about 62 years old, that I've known for 11 days, washes my underwear. Wow. Kinda intimate, no?

Also, there is a severe lack of antibacterial soap here. I mean, even in my house here we have bar soap for washing hands. Is that stuff sanitary? I want to know. I mean the stuff we take for granted... dang Good thing I brought hand sanitizer when out and about. Jeez.

Jk this might be a longer post.

Today I had my "interview", which really wasn't. I met with the woman that I'm going to work closely with, her name is Julia, and we talked about my availability and what I want to do and whatnot. It seems super cool at her office. She showed me around. She talked really fast and I'd say I understood about 95% of what she said. Not too bad. I really hope/ I know I'll learn more Spanish. I'm excited because in a few weeks I'll be going with her and other people from el Federacion de Mujeres Progresistas to an all-day conference. I hope I'll learn alot and learn new prospectives about the ways that Spanish Women's Rights gro6 work. It feels so preliminary right now, but I am so excited for this.

Ugh bed time now. P.S. it's almost 1am here. Not sure what the blogspot clock will say. Probs 6:40 or so.

Buenas noches.

Me duele la garganta.

What a week.

It's crazy to me to think that I left home a week ago, because I feel as though I JUST got here, but at the same time, I know some places and these people so well, it feels that we've been here forever.

First, I have to say that the nightlife is INCREDIBLE. I heard a rumor from someone on my trip that the locals stay out till 6 or 7am and I was like WOAH. But it turns out that they have to because el metro (the subway) is closed from 1:30am till 6:00am. And really, if you meet your friends to go out at 11:30, or midnight, and the bars don't close till 6, you're gonna stay up and get the super cheap transportation home instead of paying for a taxi. The picture there is our big group (we have 22 in total) at la Plaza Mayor. In the day time, it's one of those classic pictures about Madrid with the statue of the guy on the horse, but we got there too late and you can't see him in the background. Oh well. Haha.

So Friday night of last week, and Saturday night, me, Lanny, Amanda, Allison, Eric, and a scattered number of other people in our group made it through the whole night, to get on the metro at the crack of dawn. We would start at small bars--our favorite is Casa Carmen in la Puerta del Sol (Where Juan Carlos and Jose work <3)-- and then we'd go to a few Discotecas to dance. It cracks me up that they're called discotecas. Discos! Helllz yeahh!

It was super funny to me (and eventually everyone else) that when we first started out at the first bar/club thing, we were talking in English, since we weren't yet comfortable with Spanish. But by the time we got enough drinks in us, we were talking to each other exclusively in Spanish. The way I can see/explain it, we were all the friends of yours who would start to speak Spanish when they were drunk, and tried all the time and you couldn't understand them, and they'd get super frustrated. Finally we were all drunk and in our Spanish glory. Haha. We already know that language skills are a lot more fluid when you're not as nervous, and that's exactly what happened.

We started classes on Monday, and I think they're really fun. We're at a small international language school, and man the teachers are awesome. They're really good at making you feel comfortable speaking. Except for my Wednesday night classes. The first one today was awful. 2 hours of this man speaking super slowly, we just did TWO activities, one for 1 hour and 45 minutes, and we rushed one in for the last 15. I was so mad and bored. I hope they improve. Next time I have to make sure I sit with mis mejores amigos.

I love the metro. At first it was intimidating, but once I figured it out, it's so easy! The only thing I have to complain about, however, is that when I have to transfer to go to school from my apartment, I have to climb down 5 flights of stairs, get on the metro, and when I get off, climb up 4 flights to get to the street. Exhausting! Especially if I'm running late like the past two days.

Oh yes oh yes. El parque Retiro. It has got to be the most beautiful place that I have ever been blessed to spend time in. It is so large and green and gorgeous, and there's a lake in the middle where you can rent boats and there's a big plaza, or place to sit, and I am amazed every single time we go there. We love to sit on a patio by the lake and get beer, wine and sangria all day (The picture is us paying for the bottle of wine in "pocket change"... they have 2 euro coins... not as cheap as you think). Well not all day, just after class and then until dinner. It is such a beautiful fun place, I wish I could bring all my friends and family and share it with them.

Pues, voy a acostarme, porque pienso que tengo un refriado a causa del polvo. I'm going to bed now because I'm pretty sure I'm having a reaction to the allergens from the trees. My throat hurts.

Soooo so so much fun. I love this, I'm so glad I have this chance. Sometimes it still blows my mind that I'll be living here for 3 months. This week has been awesome already.

I apparently left my white scarf at home. BOO.

So lunch today was definitely an experience.
I walked in to a little bar that is right down the street from my apartment and I sat at the bar. The bartender/owner dude was super cute and asked me where I was from "Ah, Michigan! It is a beautiful country. I've never been there, but it is very beautiful." Later he asked me how much I liked Obama, so I figure he knew it was in the U.S., but it still caught me funny at the time.

I asked for the menu, and it was a daily hand-written menu. I couldn't quite read his hand-writing, plus it was in Spanish, so I got what sounded familiar "Pallella Mixta." I had heard all about pallella in Spanish classes, so I thought, what the hey. I also ordered a Cruzcampo beer, which he told me was brewed in Sevilla, where he is from. And he gave me a few olives as a tapa! Yum.

I honestly don't know what I ate today. The pallella was mostly rice, and it had mixed meats in it, I'm guessing it was squid and clam and chicken and what? It was good though, I ate a good deal of it, but I was still confused. Also he gave me a piece of quiche, which he explained to me was like a French pizza (hmmm, I never thought of it that way) and I don't know what was in that, either. At one point it tasted like sausage, but I can't be sure.

After it was all over, I realized I had successfully gone to a hole-in-the-wall Spanish restaurant for lunch, with their multiple courses and whatnot, made friends with the owner, spoke some Spanish, some English, and asked the man next to me about the tipping policy. I was mildly proud of myself. I haven't seen my MSU crew since getting on my shuttle around 10am this morning (Spain time, 4am EST time) and I realize I am fairing quite well in a foreign city with a foreign language relatively on my own :) Who knew!?

Oh yes, the picture of my room!

I can almost touch both walls with my fingers outstretched, width wise. But it is a very comfortable room. I'm glad I brought family pictures with me from the wedding, and the one of me and Brandi and Mattie from Mattie's 80's birthday party. Good times.

I really was nervous earlier today, being so far from home without such a big saftey net, well as big as I'm used to. Plus the language thing is hard. In everyday conversation it's glaringly apparent that I don't know a lot of vocabulary, and that my grammar could use some work. But after a few hours or so, visiting the school, taking a nap in my bed, eating dinner with my host family, I feel so much more at ease, and I feel more connected to everybody (skyping with my mom and Dad probably helped).

I am FINALLY here in Madrid, after so much planning and waiting, and I can be sure that this summer will be awesome.

Yikes

I got about 2 hours of sleep, at most on the flight. The first flight to Philadelphia was a breeze. Super quick. Then the 7 hour 40 minute flight started with a whole hour taxi-ing, which sucked. But what was AWESOME was that we each had our own tv screens, you know... where is the question mark key... um....? found it. Anyways, I got to watch two episodes of Flight of the Conchords, laughed my butt off all by myself, then went to sleep, then quit trying to fight my head falling over on the seat, then watched the Blindside, and then all of a sudden the sun was coming up. Ugh. I´m tired right now, but I want to try really, really hard to stay awake until this evening so that I can get back on a normal sleep schedule.

My host mom is super cute and nice, my room is SUPER TINY but cute, I learned to ride the metro effectively (so effectively that two British tourists asked me for directions! ha! i´ve been in this country for 5 hours and i successfully told you how to take the metro to the airport. WIN.), WHY THE HECK AREN´T THE STREET SIGNS CLEARLY POSTED ON THE STREETS IN MADRID PLEASE? I swear I have to keep asking people because so far I haven´t seen the street signs in the same place twice. And I successfully located the international school, seeing as I am here currently using the internet. I supposedly have weeefeeee (wifi, but in spanish) at my apartament, but we´ll see. This constant Spanish thing is hard.

The exhaustion is setting in. I just had a glass of orange juice (jugo de naranjaaaaa) and it was delicious and gave me a bout of energy but really, I feel a severe crash coming on. I should probably eat a real meal, buy a pay-as-you-go cell phone, perhaps a full outfit of leather (these women are so fashionable, i´m wearing a blazer and I feel like a slob), make my way back on the metro to my apartment, and get some sleep. I´ll fix my body clock when I don´t feel like I´m about to fall over.

t-14 hours until takeoff

I have gone through hell this evening running around my house trying to find my camera charger. "What the hell good is a camera in Europe if you can't charge it once it runs out of batteries?" Luckily my mom found it. It sucks to move and then pack for a trip. I hardly knew where anything was anymore.

Then, I had a rough time getting new music for my ipod. A few months ago I stepped on my laptop, and after a few weeks the screen went kaput and now I can't access my itunes library, and I've just had to stick with what was already on there. But I can't image spending a total of 9 hours on a plane without any new music. So my awesome brother-in-law has fixed up my netbook to work with my ipod, and Brandi was a sweetheart and sent me a bunch of new music. I will be a happy camper. As long as I don't get motion sick. Yikes.

So the flight is 1:50pm tomorrow. I'm glad that I'm on the flight with Lanny and Amanda and Allison and other people in our program. Then I get to meet Mari and Lupe on Thursday morning. I'm nervous, but excited too. This is really the first time I've been nervous about this thing. I wonder if I'll be able to sleep tonight.

I'm keeping this travel blog for my MC 401 paper, for my field experience. I need to track how my work and research is going while I'll be abroad. I'm so excited for this opportunity, and I mean I love to journal, too. I love to look back later and see what I've learned and how far I've come.

As for now (it could change if they don't like me, or if I don't like them) I'm going to intern for el Federacion de Mujeres Progresistas (Federation of Progressive Women). I have no clue what my duties might be, but I can be quite sure that it won't be simply filing or whatnot.

I honestly can't believe that I have this opportunity. Months ago, probably around November, I vowed to myself that I was going to get out of East Lansing/Michigan for this Summer. There was no way I was going to let life keep happening to me the way it was. So I took charge. But STILL I had no idea that it would take me to Madrid, Spain for 3 months! How incredible! I feel so blessed and lucky to have this opportunity, and I hope and pray that I will put all I can into this experience so that I will get the absolute most out of it as well. :)