Details

So life is in the details or something like that right? I'm going on a month now and I thought I would share a few of life's little details that are everyday things, but make a significant (or at least seemingly significant) part of my life over here. There is no order to the these and some may not even be interesting, like this first one:

The dirt on the floor. The floor of my room seems to be always dirty. It is a wood floor that always looks pretty nice, until you put a bare foot on it. While walking either bare foot or in socks I seem to collect a nice little layer of dust and dirt on my feet. I can't seem to do anything about it. Even one minute after sweeping, it all comes back. I have no idea where it comes from, because I consider myself a clean person for the most part, but the dirt here just seems to reproduce out of nothing. I have given up and am trying to live with it. Maybe in the future I can come up with a method to dust proof my room, but that day has not come. For now the dust wins.

A thought on school. My classes here are actually very difficult. I haven't actually worried so much about a class in a very long time, even when I've been in difficult classes, I knew that if I studied enough then I could still do well. Here I just don't know. The economics classes I am taking are all using a lot of calculus that I haven't used in about 2 years... and not being able to do that puts a big hindrance on my ability to do the homework, exercises, etc... and eventually the tests. Fortunately I know people in all my classes who can help me out, but I really don't think I did a good job of picking classes that are on my level. I'm considering going to a class tomorrow for the first time (classes have been going for 3 weeks) because I think it will be easier than my others, and it might be nice to have a back up class.

Homework. Another thing that makes it almost impossible to do my homework is that I feel that I am still on vacation mode. I'm in a foreign country having fun, so homework? It is not a high priority and even when that is all I have to do, I still find ways not to. My previous experiences abroad have all ended at about this time, one month. And even in my study abroad in Japan we didn't really do much work while over there, it was all before or after. Unfortunately I don't have that luxury over here, all the work must be done here, for better or for worse. I'm afraid it is going to be all for the worse for me. Hopefully I can start to buckle down, but so far it has been very difficult to convince myself that is really necessary. What is more important my Macro II homework or an afternoon at the Retiro park? Retiro will win almost every time.

People. For those of you back home, I have made new friends, but don't worry, they will never replace the friendship we have together. Yes I am talking to you. Ok well now that we have that settled, the people over here are great, and it is very easy to meet new people all of the time. I have ended up spending most of my time with other exchange students, and unfortately most of them speak English better than Spanish, so I feel like my language ability hasn't progressed as fast as it should have. But on the bright side, almost none of them are American. So if I have to talk in Enlgish, it is better to do so with non-Americans. I need to spend time with more Spaniards, but the other exchange students are so darn cool and so much fun to hang out with. Making a transition will be a hard one, and maybe not even possilbe. I think I am just going to try and speak more Spanish with them, because most of them feel the same way I do about the whole situation. So let's hope for the best when it comes to my Spanish speaking ability!

Cold. I've been stuggling with a cold since about Thursday, so about 4 days now. I'm still not sure if it is getting much better. Even a little cold makes it very difficult to enjoy things. It is hard to enjoy dinner with friends when you are holding back coughs, struggling to breathe, and can't even taste the food. I've been pumping myself full of Musinex and Dayquill, but those only help so much, and my supply is limited. I hope I get better soon so I can enjoy more of these little details.

And I just got back from an Islands concert tonight (former band members of the Unicorns). It was a very good show and I'm enjoying finding all of the cool, little concert venues in Madrid. Maybe I can even become a regular at one? We shall see.

Oh and another great detail I forgot to include in my last post was that after spliting up from my group after the Star Wars Exhibiton, I had to go across a very large metro station. As I was going up a long escalator I thought I heard a familiar sound. And yes I did! It was the famous chords from the Final Countdown. Already on my Star Wars high, I became even more excitied when I saw the street performer playing the final countdown on his electric guitar at the top of the escalator. It made the day perfect. And I gave him a Euro for the joy he gave me. One Euro is a small price to pay for the perfect ending to a great day. Well it is late and I need a little sleep, so goodbye for now.

A New Hope

The Force in Madrid? Yes... today I let my full nerd come out and went to the Star Wars Exhibition in Madrid. It has been traveling to major cities around the world, and it just happened to be in the same city I am at this very moment. For this reason I had to go. That and many others I would say, like the fact I grew up on Star Wars. I felt like I had prepared my whole life for this one museum visit. It was full with over 240 original props that I had seen many many times before, so seeing in them in person really made me feel just a little more complete. The fact that we spent over 2 hours there, when I only spent about 2.5 hours in el Museo Prado did worry me a bit. Especially since it was only about a quarter of the size. And although most of it was in English as well in Spanish, there were some great translations, such as La Estrella de la Muerta

Experiencing that was a great way to start my week, coming off a great weekend. Friday-Sunday were spent in Granada, about a 4.5 hour bus ride to the south of Madrid. This trip really highlighted several cultural facts about Spain to me. I always knew that Spain was kind of the crossroads of Europe, Africa, and some degree the Middle East. As we got closer to Granada, many of the signs began to have Arabic on them in addition to Spanish.

Throughout the city the architecture was heavily Middle Eastern influenced, and several streets were inhabited my Moroccan markets. I tried my first Moroccan food in a restaurant where most of the people were smoking hookah instead of eating. Nothing too exciting happened there. One of the craziest things I saw was two piegons killing another one. I couldn't decided if it was a public excution or simply a mob hit. I'm pretty sure if any type of bird has a Mafia it is the piegons. It was both frightful and nerveracking as the murder took place as an oncoming street cleaner came onto the scene. We simply watched it happen and didn't step in to help. But could we do anything against the piegon hitman? My inaction is something I will always have to live with, but the fear of being next was too great.

Other than that visiting the Alhambra was pretty memorable. The tours were all in Spanish, so it was hard to understand a lot about the architecture, but I was able to understand a good part of it. Also, we got to watch a flamenco dance one night. Expecting to go into a theater, I was very happily surprised by the authentically of it when instead we walked into this long, small room, with all the chairs against the wall, while the dancers performed right in front of us.

And did I mention that this is a very special episode? Because I failed to take any good flamenco pictures I'm going to post my video! It is the only way to get the experience, even if it is just a taste. Unfortunately I had a little trouble in the middle, so a few seconds is spent looking at my lap. Also it is sideways. I know these should be easy fixes, but I'm no video editor, so this will be shown in it's raw, unedited form. So tilt your head and enjoy.

Explorations

So it is about the end of week two here in Madrid. It has continued to be both fun and busy, so I'll just hit the highlights. Seeing an alternative to staying out 'till morning I decided to go to a concert Friday night. After searching for about an hour for the sold out Dragonforce show, I found a band called Paramount Styles playing. The singer is the former singer of the 90s rock group Girls Against Boys.

This is what his new band looks like:


Anyway, my friend and I found ourselves a bit lost on the way to the show and no one seemed to know the street we were looking for. So we decided to hop in a taxi, the one sure way to get somewhere. She tells him where we need to go and he says we are already there and just need to walk a few blocks up. So we make it over to the street we need, but then we couldn't find the place we were searching for. I saw a few guys with guitar cases standing in the street and Joked around with Dina, saying that they were probably in the band. So we asked them where the place was and they pointed us down the street. A little later they walked in and started playing... it was the band. It was a very small, local music joint. I loved it the band, atmosphere, everything about it was awesome. Taking pictures was difficlut because of the very low concert lighting and what not, but you can see by my We even got to talk to the band for quite a while after the show. You know when you ask the band for directions to their own show they must think that is quite comical, but they all thought it was quite funny. Well that was it for that day and Saturday I did a little tour of the city with the exchange program, And now a note on today:

Well you know that thing about Spanish time being really relaxed? I must be getting too used to this Spanish time because today when I needed to be on time I wasn't. I was planning to leave for Toledo, the old Spanish capital, at 12:30 this morning. The Exchange Student office ran out of tickets early so I was in the group that was going on our own. We were to meet at a bus station about 30 minutes from my flat. Well I woke up with plenty of time, at about 9:30, but decided I didn't have anything to do so I went back to sleep. Unfortunately, the next time I woke up was 12:35. I had missed it.

My first attempt to call my friends to apologize failed. A few minutes later I received a call from my friend saying she couldn't find anyone there and hadn't left yet. I was still good to go. After meeting her there we got our bus tickets and made out way to Toledo. The Spanish highway system reminded me a lot of the highways back home, with gas stations available at every exit. But seeing everything in metric system confused me a little. Because I'm pretty sure we weren't going 120 mph the whole way there.

When we got to Toledo we actually found some other exchange students in the station and followed them up to the oldest cathedral in Spain, cerca 1227. We couldn't take pictures inside, but it was nothing like any church in America. The details put into every part of it were incredible. I don't think anybody today would take the time to sculpt figurines into the wall like this, but let me tell you: if they did, I would go and see it.

Well in the Cathedral we saw most of the other exchange students but we decided to still do our own thing and explore by ourselves or at least in other small groups. We eventually meet up with some of my Italian friends and met their roommates, 2 Americans and explored with them for a bit. No crazy stories about that, but it was a fun time.

This is what Connor in Toledo looks like:

This is what the end of my post looks like:

FOREIGNER is written on my forehead...

I didn't plan on writing on this blog so much, but a few things have happened recently that just need to be shared. Today was the first day of classes and although it went well, I pointed myself out as someone that isn't from around here all day long.

The day started when I met a friend at the Atocha station to buy a month long metro pass. These are not sold in the staion itslef, but they sell these in tobacco stores. Even after getting one I still don't understand the conncetion between cigarrets and metro passes. Then after I had finished filling it out the vendor keep telling me something that I didn't understand. I stood there for about a minute doing nothing, looking at the card I had completly filled out while he repeatedly told me the same thing until a Spanish lady in line kindly told me in English that he wanted my signature.

It was quite a way to start a rainy day. After eating some breakfast I parted ways with my amiga and ran into an Italian friend I had met at orientation waiting for the same train. He introduced me to his other friend and we discovered that we were going to the same class, but apparently we were both a little missinformed. When we got to the class it was almost full, and I noticed that there were quite a few Spanierds in the class. The teacher then started teaching, but in Spanish of course. We looked at eachother and decided that she was just speaking Spanish because she was easing the other stuents in or something. I couldn't understand everything, but she was talking about the Internet and other methods of communcations. Finally we asked a girl in front of us and we discovered that it wasn't the right class at all. So then we got to take the walk of shame out of class as the lost exchange students. Our class had been moved across the hall without us knowing, so then we attended the right class.

After class I then went to the exchange office to try and get my campus e-mail working. And it seemed like every exchange student was there trying to solve some problem. It seemed like I fixed my problem there... but I didn't. Tomorrow I'll have to check out the line again.

One more thing happened today which pointed me out as a stranger in these parts. I went to the local supermarket and bought myself a few different foods and after checking out they have a bag it yourself system. I've done this before at home and even last week at this store, but for some reason I couldn't get the plastic bag to open, like all plastic bags do it was just sticking together. So I tried the next one and couldn't open it either. I was there for about a minute trying to open my bags and one of the guys behind me in line who had just checked out helped me out and of course opened it no problem. I'm as American as can be apparantly.

Also I thought that you might want to see a few pictures so here are a few. And probably the mere fact that I took all these photos reminded people I'm not from around here.

We had to get some American food back in our system.

Crazy cow art.

Really cool building, so many buildings have amazing statues on top.

Visiting El Museo del Prado

Yesterday's Snow