Spain, finally!

So now that I'm a little more settled in my new casa en Madrid, I decided I should blog! Aren't you all so excited!? There aren't too many exciting events to write about ... yet ... but I'll detail just a few.

In my program, we live with host families. My family is made up of two sisters who are probably in their mid-70s (not married, no kids) and a niece who is 21 but she's currently with her boyfriend living in England and I think is coming back in October. Anyway, their names are Concha (short for Concepcion) and Paloma and they're too cute. Everything with them is great so far, except I can't understand half of what they say, but hopefully that'll change soon.

I arrived on Wednesday and had a chill night of unpacking and bonding (aka watching the gameshow Pasapalabras with my senoras and not understanding anything on TV). The next day we had our first orientation session at the new school, so it was nice to see everyone in my program, and also speak English. yesss. We took a test (mehhh) and then everyone went out to do errands/kill time before going home to our families.

Much later (12), people were trying to make plans to go out but those got kind of messy so the group ended up kind of splitting up. Anyway, I went out with a few people (in the POURING rain) to a club called Joy in Plaza del Sol which is pretty central. It was a pretty big club and so crowded with people. We made our way around the dance floor and to the stage and then went upstairs for a different scene. We even saw a bride who I guess was having her wedding after party there (interesting choice as there were dancers on stage and a cage in the middle of the dance floor, but that's just my opinion).
Then this Portuguese guy came up to use and asked us if we had "seen a shoe, a heel". we accused him of using a pick-up line, but he had no idea what this was, so we ended up chatting with him. Soon his friends came over and we were all talking to these really interesting international people from Portugal, Germany, Venezuela and more. They gave us tips on places to go, and we of course asked them about their respective countries and their semesters in Spain. We ended up talking for a while, but I was so exhausted by 4:30 that we left the club (early).

The next morning, after 4 hours of sleep, I was quite tired.  But alas, we had more orientation stuff- got our schedules and did a walking tour of the city center for 3 hours. We didn't eat lunch until 3:30 and needless to say, all of us were STARVING. Good thing the tapas were delish. I had a couple of glasses of Sangria so between the walking and the Sangria, I was ready for a serious siesta upon my arrival at the apartment. 2 hours later I was a happy camper. I woke up and went for a run before returning home to shower and have dinner. No one really made moves to go out/ things got messy again, but it was alright to relax.

Today is Saturday, so Allison and I just toured around the city center more, went to the park and went shopping. Tonight for sure we'll all go out sooo I'm sure we'll find some excellent fiestas! Sorry this was kind of boring, but more stories later! Oktoberfest is approaching...


Sidenote: one thing I forgot to include about Rome is Allison and my failed attempted to get into the Vatican. The guards decided that our shorts were too short to enter- harsh.