first week in Madrid

singing in a karaoke bar with our new argentinian friend
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Lunes feb. 2

Hoy era una día muy ocupada. Escribo aquí en español porque es Buena practica. Estoy cansada. Me desperté a las 6 y cuarto y no podia regresar a dormir. Me levanté a las 7, me vestí y me hice lista para el día. A las 8 Ashley y yo nos fuimos para el estación de autobus para ir a Getafe. Encontremos otras estudiantes de nuestra programa en el estación Atocha, y hablamos con ellas durante el viaje.

finding our way around...or more often, getting lost

el Palacio Real (Royal Palace)
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Lleguemos a Carlos III y no podia encontrar el edificio para meet. I’m tired of writing in spanish for now, so finally we found it, and started orientation. First we had a tour given by a Spanish student and then activated our email accounts and had free facebook time, what a relief! Then we had to listen to some important people speak y then we got to go to a reception for new international students. We got to eat delicious tapas & drink beer and wine! What a change from the U.S. schools! Met a ton of new people. Then we had to listen through long presentations by professors for all the clases, I almost fell asleep. Then we were basically done, but my amigas y yo went to get café con leche y snacks from the cafeteria. Finally we left at about 7, went back through atocha and whatnot, went to our own homes with vague plans to meet up for wine later. We came home, ate dinner.

streets of Madrid
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Dinner was fine. Then we decided to go to an internet café to connect with the world, and natalia walked with us. It was fun finally talking to her and getting to know her more. It’s really fun to talk to them. I’m starting to understand them a lot better now. Its not quite a blur. Its getting easier! It’s so cute, natalia and Emilio were fighting/arguing a lot today. Anyways I’m exhausted, more adventures mañana!

<3 JannA

Tuesday 2/3

today was yet another busy day. We didn’t have to be at the university until 2:45, so we had the morning off. Ashley and I got up at 8 am and went for a run through Parque del Retiro, about 2.5 miles. It was freezing! Then we got ready and headed to Puerta del Sol, where we met up with a group of girls (Roya, Sophie, Jeanina, Vanessa, and a bunch of other girls including Laurie, etc).

Plaza Mayor
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I bought a sim card near Sol and almost got my phone working, walked around shops including El Cortes Ingles (their version of wal-mart but more expensive), and eventually I went into an at least 5 story H&M and bought some tights that I was looking for. Then we all headed to the train station via the metro, bought a simple lunch of sandwiches in the station, then headed towards Getafe. There we had introductions about student activities and whatnot,, and then more class presentations. I went online for a good part of it. Eventually we headed home. Ashley and I ate home in our house, which was basically fetuccine alfredo with ham, and chicken nuggets, I know crazy right? After dinner I took a very short nap (I was exhausted and am now as well) and then Ashley and I went to Karaoke night with Asociacion Erasmus, an international student exchange organization. We went to Laser Karaoke, a karaoke club near plaza de santon marin (es correcto?) and Calle Huertas. It was soooo cool. It was filled with Spanish students and people from other countries who were studying at Carlos III. Not many Americans there from the looks of it. We basically just sang karaoke and danced and talked all night, at least til 1 when we had to go take the bart. It was amazing. Watching Spaniards sing backstreet boys and YMCA and all that. We ourselves sang Dani California.

with Vanessa, Ashley and our new Spanish amigo David at Palacio.
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Tomorrow voy a explorer solo. Ser'a divertido ojala.

Voy a escribir m’as manana cuando no estoy tan cansada.

Wednesday 2/4

Today I woke up at about 10 am, got ready and headed off for Goya, a local market/shopping area. I went to El Corte Ingles and bought some fruit and water for myself. It was definitely confusing to navigate a huge new supermarket in Spanish, but I managed to find everything I was looking for.

Kapital...a humongous club, impossible to fully demonstrate through a picture
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I took the metro from there (Goya) to Opera, a stop in the center near Puerta del Sol and the Palacio Real. Although I had never been to either stop before, I find the metro here very easy to navigate. All I have to do is look at the map for 2 seconds, then follow the signs which are very clear and straightforward. I find it amazing that a metro that looks like a complicated web at first glance can be so comprehensive and easy to use. It puts our BART system to shame.

I was by myself, since everyone had oral exams at different times today and most people had theirs in the morning, while mine wasn’t until 3:30. It was kind of nice to explore independently and go wherever I wanted. I got off the metro, found the Palacio Real, took some cool pictures then wandered in search of Plaza Mayor. I didn’t find it at first, took a wrong turn and ended up in front of a pretty cathedral (I later looked at the map and saw it was called Catedral de la Almudena). On my 2^nd try I finally found Plaza Mayor which was pretty cool and old-fashioned looking. On my way to Sol for the metro, I stopped in this little shop called Museo del Jamon and bought a picnic para llevar lunch (sandwich, drink, fruit) for only 2 euros…a definite bargain especially in the touristy center. I took the metro then the commuter train (cercanias) to school, ate lunch there, went on the internet some more, took my brief oral exam, more internet then commuted home, where I met up with Ashley and my host family and just relaxed (I was very tired, and then realized it’s because I’ve been walking a ridiculous amount! Yesterday I walked/ran over 10 miles, and today about 7. ay yai yai.)

el rastro flea market...it was this crowded for probably 10 blocks along the main road and several side streets!
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Thursday 2/5/09

àToday was alright…EAP meeting with the director of EAP at 11, our last formal orientation event. Small lunch at the Carlos III cafeteria, computer lab for a couple hours to use the internet (still feel like there’s a million things to do online). Then bought our Asociacion Erasmus cards, which gets us free stuff in this international student network. Cool events like karaoke, clubbing tonight, day trips, etc. Then we returned to la casa, went for another run in the giant Parque del Retiro. Got ready again and went out shopping again at Puerta del Sol. The streets I was shopping on had tons of rebajas (or sales…a word I learned very quickly). Almost everything is marked down in some stores. This time I actually bought something…some cute brown leather boots. I’ve been looking for brown boots for a long time and I found a good deal on them, only 45 euros, half off from 90 euros. A real steal for such cute tall brown leather boots, with small platforms on the bottom. I love them. They are so comfortable to wear and walk in. made in Spain too, so they’ll make a great souvenir. My other black fake leather boots that I’ve been wearing around a lot where not that good, because they’re so thin that when it’s raining the water/snow seeps through and gets my feet wet, and they have small heels so it hurts to do a lot of walking in them. Anyways, then Ashley bought a belt that she’s been needing, we started our search for free wifi in Madrid (failed attempt). Then we came home and had a lovely dinner: paella (a typical Spanish dish with rice, vegetables, chicken, and some other things thrown in there); bread with some kind of pig type thing on top, pan (delicious bread) and dos clementinas. Lo me encantó. Now we’re getting ready to go out to club Pasión con Erasmus. Hasta luego!

Palacio Velazquez
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àThursday continued: went to Club Erasmus, with Ashley and Vanessa. We were supposed to get free beer with our Erasmus card before midnight, but we realized too late that the buses stop running at 11:30, and so it was a pain getting there. We didn’t end up getting there until after midnight, and it was almost impossible to find the place. On the way we heard some Irish guys talking English, so we helped give them directions. Then we arrived at the club, it was pretty small, and about 5 or 10 minutes after we arrived everyone started clearing out. We took turns buying each other drinks. As we were standing there, we noticed a girl standing by herself and decided to talk to her. Turns out she was from England, so it was really easy to talk to her. She was actually really nice, her boyfriend worked in that bar and she was just waiting for him to get off work, but she offered to show us around Madrid and get us in free on Wednesdays to this club where she used to work. Her name was Lani and she exchanged numbers with Ashley, then showed us how to get to Palacio, this other club where some Erasmus people were heading. Just as we were almost at the next club, these 3 guys overheard us talking English and got all excited, came up and introduced themselves as 3 Stanford students. Of course we didn’t want to talk to them after hearing that, but we were nice and chatted with them. They had been studying in Madrid for about a month now. Ashley exchanged numbers with one of them. Then we headed to Palacio, got in free which was so nice, and danced the night away. It was probably around 2 when we got there and we made it our goal to do as the Spaniards do and stay til 6 so we could get home for free using the metro. We ended up wimping out on that goal and leaving at about 5:30, because our feet were hurting so bad and we were so gross and sweaty that we couldn’t take it anymore. But the club itself was a ton of fun. It was an international intercambio night, so a bunch of people had name tags that said what country they were from. We met guys from España, Argentina, Venezuela, Germany, you name it. We got creeped on by a bunch of guys, they would just keep following us. But we met this group of guys that seemed pretty cool and nice, and tried talking to them. It was so loud in the club that you basically couldn’t hear a word they were saying even in English. This one annoying Spaniard dealt with that situation by yelling in our ears at the top of his lungs in very broken English, saying how he was so excited to go to San Diego this summer and party with us. We did our best to ignore him.

Palacio Cristal
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We danced with the guys for awhile.  It was more like swing/ballroom dance than the normal type of dancing we do at home, which was a nice refreshing change. We also took lots of pictures…actually that was how we met those guys, they just jumped in one of our photos. People do that here. When we were exhausted we left and on our way out this Spaniard started talking to Vanessa and it was kinda fun trying to figure out what he was saying so I ended up talking to him in Spanish about how he was going to New York soon and the difference between New York and here and just joking around with him. It was fun, I actually felt kind of good at Spanish. He actually said I was good which was surprising.

So overall, the night was a ton of fun. We were all so glad we went out and could not wait to do so again.

Friday 2/6

Ashley and I dragged ourselves out of our beds at around 12 pm (way earlier than we would’ve liked to), and headed to the university in Getafe all for the sake of turning in one small form that was due today that we had forgotten to turn in the day before. We made the almost hour-long commute, turned in our form, then spent a couple more hours using the free internet on campus. We booked a flight to Barcelona! We are going the last weekend of February, to visit some of our friends who are studying abroad in Netherlands but visiting Spain that weekend. Booking the plane tickets online was such a hassle though because we had problem after problem with our cards and the websites. Finally we were done with that, took care of other internet tasks then headed back to our casa. We were pretty tired so we took siestas. A little after 8 I woke up and called Andrew as I had said I would. We talked for awhile, then it was time for la cena, or dinner. We had some pretty good bean soup, bread and more delicious tapas. We were going to go to pub crawling with Erasmus but it just seemed too early to go out, so we took our time getting ready, almost missed the bus again, and met up with Vanessa, Jeanina, Sophie and Roya at Atocha station again. It was still only around midnight and so we decided to hit some bars first before going to Kapital, an enormous and very popular club or discoteca. We found this place called 41, a Latin American music club/bar which was really fun, but we left after a little while. We wandered around the street, tried a few bars that looked good, but left shortly, basically went bar hopping. We finally decided it was late enough to head to Kapital (at around 1:30), but as we were walking down the street heading there we got stopped in the street by these 2 guys. One of them asked if we spoke English or Spanish, and we all said “todo” or both or a little, and then they asked “How much English do you know,” and we said “a lot, considering we were born in America,” and that surprised them, and they were happy they could talk to us in English. They had British accents and one guy looked like he had been traveling for awhile. They kept trying to persuade us to go into their pub and have a drink, but we all said no, unless it’s free, we’re on our way to Kapital. After awhile we finally started to leave but then this other guy ran out and yelled “wait!” then introduced himself to all of us (he was also from London). He too tried to persuade us to come in, but after we said no, we almost left but another guy came out, repeated the process, and maybe even another guy came out after that. Finally we felt so bad saying no after all that persuading, so we went in and some of us bought beers with what little change we had (we were trying to save the rest for the rather expensive club Kapital). It was very odd because we noticed that everyone was speaking English in that bar…a mixture of people traveling from London and Americans studying abroad in Barcelona, visiting Madrid for the weekend. It was a fun and lively atmosphere, the guys from London were crazy and loud and fun. We talked to them for awhile and finally made our way to Kapital.

Kapital was amazing. It definitely hurt to pay 18 euros to get in plus 2 euros for coat check (all the money I had left for the night), but the entrance ticket included one free copa (or drink). And, we soon discovered that it was worth the high entrance fee, at least for this one time only. The club has seven floors and looked like it was an old theater or something, with theater-like balconies on the sides and a stage in front. Like the night before, there were models dancing on the stage in interesting costumes. We decided we would try every floor at one point or another, which we did. Most floors had dance floors, except the top floor had what looked like a restauarant with Vegas-like decorations. Another floor had a movie playing on a screen. There were cool looking bars everywhere where u could get drinks and sit down. Supposedly there was karaoke on the 2^nd floor but we never found it. we got there at 2 and stayed until 6! We spent most of the time dancing in a group of girls and warding off creepy guys (they were everywhere…they would just appear behind you and start dancing and inching closer to you until you had to either move or push them away. At times I felt surrounded by them. Spanish guys are definitely more forward than American guys). But dancing was so much fun. This time I wore flats so my legs didn’t hurt quite so bad. At around 5 am I got pretty tired and wasn’t sure how I would make it to 6, but then I kept dancing and soon it got addicting. None of us wanted to stop even when the club closed at 6. at about 5:30 there was a guy who started playing the live chonga drums on one of the balconies, in place of the normal music and it was so cool! Also, the ceilings were very high and if you were dancing on the main ground floor, there were fog machines and platforms to dance on and though it was extremely crowded, every few minutes there would be a blast of cold air coming from the ceiling. It was a brilliant idea because the air felt so good. Otherwise we would’ve been way more uncomfortable and hot and sweaty. It was definitely a fun experience, though we decided we wont go back to that club often since its so expensive! At 6 the club closed so we had no choice but to leave. Some people wanted churros con chocolate but some of us had absolutely no money left and other people’s feet were aching, so we decided to just walk to the bus stop and take the bus home. Sleeping felt amazing. I slept until about 2 pm the next day, just in time for el almuerzo, or lunch.

Saturday 2/7

Woke up at about 2. ate lunch (lentil soup again with delicious, fresh bread and corn on the cob). got ready. Ashley and I went to the Museo del Prado. Unfortunately we were an hour before the free time but we did get a student discount, so it was only 3 euros to get in. and it was nice, because since it wasn’t free at that time, it wasn’t too crowded. We saw less than 2 full rooms but it was still an amazing introduction. At 6 when it became free entrance it got a lot more crowded, and we left to go meet Sophie to try to buy something to get us internet in our casa. That didn’t work because she said the shop was probably closed, so Ashley and I just took the metro to Goya, a shopping district near our house, and went to El Corte Ingles. We bought some snacks (I bought almonds, dark chocolate and granola bars). Then we took the bus home, ate dinner (vegetable soup, bread, and a plate full of tomatoes, some type of meat and cheese all drenched in olive oil). By this time we were so tired from the previous 2 nights of clubbing that we decided not to go out but to just take it easy instead. We headed out to the internet café to use the internet for a little while. I called Nicole to wish her happy birthday! Then we walked home and went to bed, a relatively uneventful day.

Sunday 2/8

Woke up at about 10 am and went with Ashley to El Rastro, this humongous street flea market that is only open on Sundays, and that’s tremendously popular. There was stall after stall after stall, taking up several blocks of the main street and some side streets, and the entire street was completely packed with people. They sold everything from clothes to scarves to shoes to trinkets to military gear. It was fun just walking around browsing. I bought a pashmina scarf and some gloves, both for very cheap. Ashley bought a red pea coat that I also really loved, and I will definitely be borrowing it. we met up with our friends a little later, one by one, and walked with them for a little while, but quickly lost them and after several hours, took the bus back home.

upon arriving at our bus stop, we decided to go for a walk in Parque del Retiro. This time we headed to the center and checked out the Palacio de Cristal, which was designed by Velazquez in the 19^th century and used to be a greenhouse. Then we checked out the Palacio Velazquez which was also nearby, in the park. Then we headed back to the house, and went for yet another run in the park.  Dinner that night was very American but very good....(pork) burgers and (homemade) French fries...with ketchup packets from Burger King, since their main bottle was empty.  We went to bed kind of early to get ready for our first day of school, which by this point we were kind of excited for!