It's cool, Hemingway is my DD

Here are some pictures from this weekend of visiting El Escorial which was a monastery, university, and royal retreat. Pretty impressive, especially the tomb where all the past kinds and queens reside. No pictures were allowed inside though, so I apologize for not having any to show. I also got to see the grave of Don Juan, who I found out was a Spanish General from Austria after some research. Unfortunately, he was not as much of a womanizer as the fictional Don Juan. Then we went over to Valley of the Fallen which was absolutely beautiful. The sites construction however is a bit controversial because it was built by war prisoners, so kind of bittersweet beauty.

Alright ladies and gentlemen, today is the day that I went to check out the family apartment so get ready for a bunch of photos. I started my day around noon and headed to the apartment on the metro which took less than ten minutes. It's just a couple of stops before the city center, Sol. I finally got off at Tribunal on metro line 10 and walked about a block or two before I came across the apartment. Here are some pictures of the outside of the apartment since I wasn't able to go in. This is a picture of the front door and then a picture of the outside of the building. Don't let the graffiti turn you off because the little that I saw of the inside looked very clean and nice, also graffiti is pretty much EVERYWHERE.

After taking my photos I continued down the street and saw a coffee shop less than a block away. I then made a spur of the moment purchase and bought myself a coffee pot so I could make myself some expresso in the apartment. I admit that I will never be able to make it as good as my dear Abuela Nena, but I can I try my best until my next visit to Miami. Here are some pictures.








I then proceeded through a plaza which is right down the street from the apartment. It's full of nice little shops, each with its own specialty. I was then lucky enough to stumble across a public bathroom which also serves food, aka McDonalds. I then sat and enjoyed my 1 euro ice cream and talked with some nice ladies from England who were here on vacation. On my walk I also found these two eateries which I'm sure I will have to visit each at least once.

I then came across the famous pub Bodega Angel Sierra, which is suppose to be "one of the oldest surviving taverns." It was very enjoyable and hopefully I will spend some nights there in the future. After that I did some sight seeing in the area and ended up in front of a bakery where I immediately bought some sweets after the salty food from the pub. I chose chocolate covered elephant ears and a doughnut which is turn out to be popular here.





Next was the artistic community where I had a cafe at one of the famous cafes Pepe Botella which is not too far from the apartment and is suppose to be a regular site for directors, artists, and actors to hang out. I then made my final stop at the museum of contemporary art and the city began to slowly close down for its usual siesta. I headed back to the aparment for my own like a good madrileño.

Lesson 56: Vegetarians eat dirt cheap.

After a hard day of studying I decided to begin a new experiment that I will proceed to execute during my time here in Spain. The objective of my experiment is to cook every recipe in my vegetarian cook book possible. The first victim for tonight was Fajitas! I read through my book, writing down everything I would need, and then headed for the grocery store before it closed. I then spent the next half hour walking around the grocery store, list in hand, looking like a lost child. However, as soon as I got the groove of bagging fruit, weighing, and printing a sticker, I became a produce bagging MACHINE! I was grabbing everything and having a blast, I even started grabbing things I wasn't sure I needed. One consequence of that being that I now have a red pepper in the fridge and a huge zucchini that I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with. After a while my bag began to grow heavy with all of my groceries and I began to worry that I had possibly bought too much. I was determined to exceed 25 euros since our grocery store give you a free gift if you bought more than 25 euros worth. I found this out after I won a loaf of bread on my first visit, and a had a very confused conversation with the cashier about why she was putting an extra loaf of bread into my bags. In the end I only spent 19 euros and have plenty left over after my Fajita adventure! The most expensive thing on my grocery list was hot sauce, something that I can't live without.

My Fajitas consisted of broccoli, zucchini, onions, and corn. It was delicious and I made enough to have some left over for tomorrow! Yummy! Here are some pictures of me and my creation.

The culture shock that some people face is not something new for me. I've heard people complain about how much they miss some American food or how they miss people who speak english, but the things I've seen and heard on this trip so far still astound me. For an hour and a half I was on a bus listening to a group of Americans behind me talk about how badly they wanted Burger King over the hand made lunches that we were given to us by the school. Another girl went on about how she missed "bud light" and that none of the European brews could compete. I simply put my head down and tried not to listen, but any hope of that was lost when a cheerleader sat next to me. Dear lord, can cheerleaders talk. As I was trying to listen to our guided tour this girl would not stop talking to me, I'm not sure when she found time to breath. I'm sure her and Vishal would be great friends. But I can't help find it interesting how some students are so set in their own culture. If you don't like it here that much then why did you come? Did you not realize the predominate language here is SPANISH? It also doesn't help that some people here simply refuse to learn Spanish or even attempt it. It's just a sad state of affairs, but that's why I hang out with a Frenchman, Brazillians, my room mate raised in Turkey, and anyone else I can find. Lesson of the story, don't sit next to cheerleaders.

Lesson 349
After going through orientation for two days and having my first day of classes I've come to the realization that nothing is organized well here in Madrid. I was warned before I came but I had no idea that it was going to be this bad. People here have no sense of "being wery effective und efficient!" as my management teacher from Germany would say. By the way, the Germans are perfect for teaching management because after being raised by a German mother for nineteen years, I know exactly how effective and efficient they can be. The madrileños have no sense of either though... Mainly effectiveness, which I found out after I sat in a bus for almost an hour waiting for everyone to be loaded on, we're not that big of a group. No one is ever on time, I had three classes today and only one professor was there on the dot, take a wild guess which one that was. Also note, this would have been lesson three had this lesson not taken a seista and then decided to stop for coffee and a snack with the other lessons on the way. It would however be very rude of me to not mention the upsides of such a lifestyle. First off, there is never any rush, instead things will work themselves out. My roomies and I invited some friends out to dinner around 8 and I was freaking out because we didn't get there until 9! Turns out that they were even later than us and we had a great night. The seista isn't bad either since it is similar to German Kaffee und Kuchen, except for the fact that everything shut downs from about 2 to 5, no joke. Welcome to Spain, now excuse me it's time for my siesta.

I know that all of you wanted to see the apartment that I struggled to find last night and so I snuck in a few photos before anyone else could wake up.

My journey begins in airport security where I waved goodbye to my two extremely nervous loving parents. As I was waiting I began to look around at the people waiting anxiously and realized that Umar's firecracker act had done something more than just make me claim I was a Econ major in airports, it created fear. The TSA tells us to trust no one and I thought about this as I watched an elderly hispanic man kiss his granddaughter goodbye and walk in line with the assistance of a cane.... oh ya, he was packing heat. The TSA seemed to think so since this man was yelled at for being unable to walk without his cane, remove his shoes, or speak english. At that point I stepped in and gladly helped the man remove his shoes along with his cane and went back to place them through the x-ray, despite the death glares I got from behind. I then helped the man through the metal detector while the TSA officer found humor in the situation. It amazes me how power really does get to some people.

I then went to board my plane where I witnessed heaven and hell. I first walked through first class, which included beds, coat hangers, and small tables. Then passed through business which was reasonable only to give way to coach... pure chaos. It was there that I found my seat next to a cute, adorable, insanely annoying couple. It consisted of a white man who seemed to have obsession with listening to N'Sync and resting his head on the shoulder of his wife who was half his size. But I had a smile on the whole time, because I was surrounded by british accents and I can only imagine what they're going to say when Sebastian and I study in the UK. I then went on to almost miss my connecting flight and lose my luggage, but still made it safely.

Now, it's been a while since I've been in Europe and we've got some catching up to do.
Adios, until next time.