hala madrid

soo tonight we went to the real madrid game! it was soo fun, they played real zaragoza and won 3-1. there were soo many differences between going to the soccer game here and football in the states:

1. the game only lasted 2 hours (to be expected because the game is only 90 mins) instead of 3 or so hours at gillette.

2. at football/baseball games, everyone has a beer and food. here, like no one was drinking and some people had some chips but at halftime, people pulled out a sandwich in like tin foil. weird. no hot dogs or anything.

3. loved all the chants and intensity

4. their screen to show announcements was TINY compared to the HUGE ones in the US

5. NO REPLAYS on the screen. whaat?

6. no halftime show

what's going on with these spaniards?

too close for comfort

i forgot to write this the other day but we were almost pickpocketed on the metro the other day! we got on the train and three girls in their mid-20's, normally dressed, like cornered us. it wasn't that busy on the train so their lack of personal space was a little fishy. one girl went in between me and my friend ariel. another girl pulled out this huge map and started asking us for directions, but she was just saying random places not close to each other so we were kind of confused. the girl next to me was holding a coat over her arm and i pulled my bag closer to me. i got nervous so i walked away and realized that my bag was open. i checked and thank god, nothing was missing. i yelled for ariel to get away from them and she did. her bag was open too and luckily we just escaped them and nothing was missing. the three girls then walked down the train looking at other women's purses and asking them for directions. too scary. i was really on edge for a while after that. they looked so normal, and you usually don't see women pick pocketing. thank goodness i survived that one and i'm a lot more conscious now when i'm out in public!

1 euro scarves!!

Such an eventful weekend! Today we went to El Rastro, which is an open flea market. it was HUGE!! so fun. 1 euro scarves and you can buy everything imaginable. We even watched a live infomercial for a vegetable cutter hahahhaa.

Going to watch the Patriots game tonight at an Irish bar! I'll update later...

el tigre grrrrrr

and yet another touristy day today.

wandered around el parque retiro for a couple hours with some friends...it was a gorgeous day and we sat and had lunch in the middle of the park...and watched some street performers and people make out in the boats.

then we went down to sol to san gines, the famous churros place, and got churros y chocolate. MMMMMMM.

and tonight, we ventured over to "el tigre" this famous restaurant that everyone says you need to go to. so we went. and it was PACKED. like PACCCKKKEEDDD. and you pay like 6 euros and get this HUGE drink and free tapas. the food was amazing and it was so so fun, even if we couldn't breathe in there. and after we went to our favorite place, Commo and met up with Miles, Carissa's friend...mmhmm.

tomorrow we're going to Dubliners, this irish bar, to watch the pats..GO PATSSS

it smells like ronaldo in here

today was such a productive, touristy day. woke up at noon, fabulous. then since we live less than a mile from the santiago bernabéu stadium (the real madrid stadium), we walked there. we were starving so we had lunch right outside the stadium at this pizza place, and sat outside. it was kinda cold we realized, but we were too proud to ask to move inside. our waiter and a little crush on caroline hahahaha and he asked her how to say "estoyloco para ti" in english (i'm crazy for you). his name is fernando, hes from ecuador, hes 24, and he's in love with caroline. too funny. we had pizza and sangria, which was delicious. after that, we walked to the stadium and took a self-guided tour. i've been there before when i went on my teen tour, but it was a lot more fun being there with carissa, caroline, and danielle. carissa thinks her boyfriend is ronaldo, so every time we saw his picture we HAD to take a picture.

after carissa bought the entire gift shop at the stadium, we stopped for ice cream. of courseee i got dulce de leche, and carissa and danielle told me to get "2 bolas" or 2 scoops, but danielle accidently said "bolsas" (bags) instead of "bolas" and the girl got so confused. we took the metro downtown and went to el museo reina sofia. we searched and searched for La Guernica by Picasso and FINALLLY found it. i was in love and shock and love. unfortunately we couldn't take pictures in there,the security guards would have murdered us. but it was beautiful and overwhelming and HUGE. Picasso is a genius. It was cool to actually see a painting in person that I've been studying for years and have only seen reproductions of. there was a whole room with his studies for the final piece so you could see his thinking and process of making it. amazing.

exhausted we all went home and we just had dinner (mmm tortilla española). now it's movie night with the family!!

carbs on carbs on carbs

hii...sorry it's been a while. not much has been going on because all week i've just been going to classes. well wednesday night was el clasico, the soccer game between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. We went downstairs in the sports bar to watch the game with our host dad and brother. well this tiny tiny bar was filllllled with old men hahaahah. we were the only girls except for one older woman sitting near us. every time a player was "hurt" and horribly acting, all the men would yell and complain and when anyone scored, they would all scream...it was great. and then after that, carissa and i went to a concert. the dj diplo performed...he came to washu last fall (?) when major lazer was supposed to come but the other dj didn't show up. he killed it and it was really fun...except for the fact that someone stole my camera :(not really sure what we're doing this weekend, but we'll see!

my carbs on carbs on carbs lunch. bread and potatoes and pasta. mmm.

watching the fútbol game in the bar

mi familia (except josé, rodrigo, and ricardo)

DIPLO

toledo: my destination wedding

so today we went on a day trip to toledo. even though it was rainy and cold, it was still gorgeous. we had a tour guide that looked like steve irwin and who wore a jean jacket with its collar popped. style. he was actually terrible and kept losing half the group. we walked around from like 10:30-1, went to a museum, a synagogue, etc. toledo is the place in spain where jews, christians, and muslims all coexisted so there were menorahs in a window and i basically yelled, "OH MY GOD, A MENORAH!" and the girl next to me turned and said, "oh my god are you jewish?" thank god i finally met another jewish person!!! as it turns out i actually met three other girls who are jewish today...amen. so then from 1-5, they decided to give us free time in a tiny town with windy, confusing streets and only restaurants and gift shops and churches. so we were exhausted and finally came back home. toledo is where I'm getting married. no questions asked. it's b-e-a-utiful.

ALSO TO ALL MY PI PHIS, I'M SO PROUD OF YOU AND CAN'T WAIT TO MEET ALL THE BABIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

repollo is not twice baked chicken

adventures of the day: we went downstairs to this tiny restaurant that is connected to ourapartment building because we were starving and too lazy to walk anywhere else. anyways, it was like empty and they had a list of three menus on the wall, but apparently we could only order off their special saturday menu. we didn't understand half of the menu, and you get two courses and a dessert. so we just picked arroz cubano (rice) because it looked the most normal, and then for the second course we wanted this egg dish (mostly because we had no idea what anything else was). well, the waiter came back and told us that they didn't have that dish anymore and we could order bacalao or repollo. first of all, we maybe thought that repollo was something chicken related (pollo = chicken) but we weren't sure and caroline had already ordered bacalao so we just said "what she ordered". SOOO while we were waiting for our food, i had the genius idea to look up on my pho

ne what all these words meant and we were so wrong. repollo = cabbage and bacalao = cod. well then. and the rice dish had fried eggs and some tomato sauce (even though they wouldn't serve us the egg dish...but they obviously had eggs?), and the cod wasn't too bad.

life lessons.

arroz cubano

bacalao a la plancha con ensalada

moral of the story: look up definitions before you ever order anything

tarea swag

second day of classes? success. two of my classes today were taught 100% in spanish, and i understood every word of it! go me. art history, i knew almost every work she showed, so i should do well in that class. and then i had my color theory class..and theres 3 of us. 3. that's it. and we're in the basement of a house with nuns living in it. fabulous.

oh, and dad, you'll enjoy this. had a fab turkey sandwich for lunch (with brie!)...it shall become my daily routine. like usual.

off to kapital tonight...google it. 7 floor night club. we'll see how it goes ;)

mi casa es su casa

some of the pictures i've been promising

Diana

Our kitchen table where we eat dinner

Living room

My bed

Caroline's bed

My bed

¡Mi primer día de clases!

the cat slept in my bed with me last night. uh huh.

So just had my first day of classes and it went fantabulously. I first had my Human Communication class, which is all girls (sadly) and my teacher Daniel is so so so so cute. He's so chill and nice and cute and young. It's gonna be a good semester if I can actually focus on the work, and not his face. Then I had my photography class, which was amazing. I'm SO excited for this class, it's perfect for me. We're going to do two big projects, a portrait and a photo story, and we get to go into the city and take pictures for class. It's like photojournalism. And my teacher is actually a professional photographer, not a real teacher, so she knows her stuff. She's so talented, you can see her work here: http://www.luanafischer.com/blog/. And I made some SLU friends! Not too excited for class tomorrow- going to be a hard day with all the spanish.

We went out for the first time last night, which was so fun. I expected to casually hang out in a bar with some girls, so I just wore a sweater...BAD IDEA. We bar hopped and I got SO hot. Anyways, it was a lot of fun, met some nice girls from california, and some nice french boys ;)

stealing carissa's pics

i haven't whipped out the camera yet, too busy, but I WILL SOON, so sorry, carissa, but i'm stealing your pics

caroline, me, and jenny

mickey?

me, carissa, and caroline

plaza mayor

I hate ham

soo, day two. right now i'm blogging every day, but let's see how long that lasts. anyways, today was orientation day. we sat for like 2 hours listening to a lecture about madrid. "don't do drugs and alcohol" "don't get pickpocketed" "do your work" "we love jesus". let me just say that we walked into a room and there was a huge sign that said: alegraos. jesús viene a salvarnos...which means, be happy, jesus came to save us. guys, i'm jewish. and the classrooms have crosses in them. where are the moses shrines? whatever, i'll just have to wear a kippah to class. anyways, the FATHER and the MINISTER talked to us and chatted about faith. after this long boring lecture, we had a little tour around the nearby area and then had lunch. this consisted of a ham and cheese sandwich (i hate ham...soo a cheese sandwich), an apple (which i'm allergic to), chips, and a doughnut in a package. dude, what's going on with spain.

after this exciting lunch, i ditched my group and found caroline and carissa (my two roommates) and we went on a tour of madrid with a bunch of people. we walked all over el centro, through plaza mayor (where we saw mickey mouse and elvis), past the palacio, and all over. fell in love with one of the leaders, thato, but that's another story.

y ya, es mi día. passing out again tonight, and textbooks tomorrow..fun fun.

¡¡Finalmente!!

Disclaimer: I'm a horrible writer so this may suck, but try to deal with it.

¿Qué pasa? Soo basically I'm hereeeee. I'm all settled in to my room (enough closet space!! thank god) and our room is so cute. I'm living with Caroline (from Xavier) and everything is fantabulous. Turns out we have a fourth roommate...but the other two haven't gotten here yet so we'll see! Our room is so cute, two little beds and desks and closet, it's perfect. I'll put up pictures later.

Our host mom, Sol, is literally the CUTEST BEING ON THE PLANET. She just wants everything to be perfect, and is willing to do anything for us. We just speak in Spanglish all day. The dad, Jose, is very nice too, but we haven't really met him yet. Then they have three sons, Ricardo (20), Rodrigo (18), and Marcos (8). And they have a cat, Diana, and a little dog who isn't here right now. Perfect little spanish family.

So now that we have the internet all worked out (third times the charm), we're just waiting for the other two girls to get here. I just can't wait to get out into MADRID and TAPAS. Hasta luego.

okay update 4:45pm: caroline and i had a CLASSIC madrid day. we decided to get up so we wouldn't pass out and ventured into the world of the metro. we luckily aced it on the first try and got to parque retiro. walked around, saw a lifesize spongebob and patrick, and then decided to get lunch. yum yum goat cheese sandwich and legal white wine. and yep, that's it. carissa our last roommate got here and she's wicked nice...now just waiting for danielle!