One week down!

So I just finished my first week in Madrid. It went by pretty uneventfully, I didn't do much as I was focusing on all my energy on getting better, which I almost am. Pretty much my week consisted of classes, food and sleep, the latter two being the essentials. The area around my University is beautiful and centrally located for getting anywhere in the city. Yesterday I walked about 30 minutes to Serrano street, the fashion area of Madrid, to everyone's favorite store, El Corte Ingles. Corte Ingles has everything, and is broken into different department stores in separate buildings. Clothing etc., technology, books, and a grocery store. It's like a Bloomingdales, Best Buy, Borders, and Acme all rolled into one. My sole purpose though was to buy some shoes, because my flip flops just don't seem to be cutting it in fashion conscience Madrid. I did pack a pair of dressy shoes, but I left the match at home.

I visited the Prado museum on Wednesday with my art history class, but we just did a quick intro to all of the different periods. Our professor said we'll be going back once a week for class and I think it will be amazing to have the opportunity to see the paintings first hand instead of on a slide, huge difference. I want to go on my own as well, because it is a completely different experience going by yourself and taking as much time as you want to look at each painting.

Yesterday, kids from class organized to meet up at 12 near the soccer stadium, and wrote the plan on the board so everyone could see. It worked, and about 20+ kids showed up. The only problem was that about 40% of us didn't bring ID's. I've only been to one other place in Madrid, and few places in Santander and I've never been asked for ID to enter anywhere. Well we ended up doing some sharing and pulled a few tricks and we were all able to enter to the club. Normally, I really do not like clubs, but when I go with a large group of people it is fun.

Before I came here I was warned about the Spanish guys, but I haven't had any problems with them. In fact, they are actually shy sometimes. In the club last night the guys stayed in their little huddles and the girls in theirs. I would talk to the Spanish girls, but they just do not seem to want anything to do with American girls. It's like a whole Jets and Sharks thing going on, no se. Actually, yeah, I almost got into a fight with one of the girls. Now that would be a story. I accidentally bumped her....hard....when I was dancing. I said 'lo siento' but I don't think she heard me so she called me over and gave me some sort of lecture with really really scary eyes. I was so freaked out I didn't have any clue what she was saying, so I just muttered lots of "lo sientos" "pardons". Anyways, so towards the end of the night we met a nice group of Spaniards and I ended up getting some tango lessons. I was horrible!! But in the end it didn't matter and I had a lot of fun and I was finally able to practice my Spanish with kids my age from Spain.

Well I tried to post all of my pictures yesterday, and I had them all ready, but something went wrong and it didn't work, argh. So I'm gonna try again and then I'll post the link. Hasta luego!