First Day of Classes

Woke up this morning by the window banging open from the huge wind outside. So after I got ready I head to school for my class at nine. During class it was discovered that the projector was not working so we sat there for an hour and a half while they tried to get it to work. I brought my laptop so I could finally get some internet and skyped with my mom for a while, in the middle of the class room (with no sound of course). Then after writing some emails some other internet activities I took off back home for lunch.

This is a picture of the street I walk up to get to school, the red brick building on the right hand side is the building. The brown door in the corner is the door I go in.

While I was there a woman came in, I think it was the land lady, and she did not speak one word of English. So I told her I knew very very little Spanish and we went from there. She walked me around our flat and explained that there is a cleaning woman who cleans the school who will also clean the flats. She will empty the trash on Monday and come on Thursday to clean. She only cleans the common rooms and not the bedrooms. She also said that we should be very quiet and not have any extra guests spending the night. I understood all of that. Can you believe it! I don't even speak Spanish but if this is how much I have learned in a few days by the time I get home I should have it down.

This picture is my walking home from school. It reminds me very much of the business district in downtown LA. That is the metro stop for school.

Another fun thing is that most Spanish people in Madrid are pretty pale, especially in the winter, so I totally blend in. They realize I'm American if they hear me speaking English, which is pretty cool for me. It's pretty much the biggest accomplishment of mine so far.

Later in the day I went back to school to send out some emails and I had a chance to Skype with my parents. That was really cool and I felt a lot better to have a chance to see their faces. After coming home a bunch of us went out to celebrate one of the girls twenty first birthday. She really wanted to go to the Hard Rock Café so we took the metro to another part of the city. It was really fun and she had a great time which is all that mattered. The surprising thing is that they basically took the prices from their American menu and put a euro sign at the end of them. So one mixed drink cost around 14 Euros or close to twenty dollars. It was crazy!

It was freezing on the way home but Madrid is beautiful at night.