Gran Via!

Wow, I've got a lot to update on! So much has happened in the last couple of days but I've been so busy since I've started classes.

Last Saturday was Madrid's Carnaval celebration. We went to Plaza Mayor on Friday to see if there was a parade, but it was just a little event. The cool part was that I got to see Plaza Mayor for the first time at night. It was beautiful! If you haven't read much about Spain before, Plaza Mayor is an old old olllddd plaza, like 1589-old. They used to hold bullfights, soccer games, markets, trials, and even public executions there. Rumor has it that you can still see the blood on the walls from the bullfights...ahhh I don't think I'm about to go looking for it, though!

Speaking of gross, Carrie and I went to lunch at school the other day and she ordered something at random, Callos de Madrileño. What is a callo, you might ask? Well, it's tripe. And if you don't know what tripe is, it's animal stomach :S Oh my lord that was gross! I was just eating a ham sandwich but I felt so sorry for her. She braved through it for about half of the plate, then gave up. Actually, she deserves a medal for that.

I don't mean to make the food sound gross here, because the food here has been delicious otherwise! On Friday at Plaza Mayor, we went to our first real tapas bar, and it was delicious! I got to try sangria too, which is definitely my new favorite drink. The Manchego cheese here is delicious, and so is the paella. They also served olives (with pits!) when we sat down, just as a standard.

Woops, I got kinda off-track there. Anyway, on Saturday Carrie and I went shopping on Gran Via and then came back for the parade. Gran Via is basically the equivalent of Broadway or Michigan Avenue. There were so many stores! I bought a few Spanish things too, so now I don't stick out quite as much as I used to. Finally, Saturday night, we got to watch the parade, and it was beyond amazing!! There were people walking on stilts, people doing backflips on bouncy stilts, so many old cars, crazy awesome floats, and movie characters too!

This week, I finished up my intensive-Spanish class. The whole class meets for 45 hours and this intensive part met for 15 out of the 45 hours in just 5 days, so that was a bit of work. My Spanish is getting a lot better, though. I can at least communicate what I want to say, although it's really difficult to express myself. I'm almost a different person in Spanish than I am in English, which is really weird.

I found out a few days ago that I don't have enough hours and have to add another class, so everyone, cross your fingers for me and hope I get into another one! They really hate schedule changes here, and it's all done by hand because they hate computers for some reason. It's like the dark ages here...just kidding! But yeah, hopefully this all works out.

Oh yeah, yesterday I went to the Reina Sofia art museum with a friend from Spanish class, Kruse, and it was awesome! We saw Guernica by Picasso, which was definitely very cool in real life. I could look at that for ages; there was so much detail. A lot of other parts of the museum were modern art, most of which Kruse and I did not understand. They did have a cool exhibit on 1970's mod furniture. That I can understand!

Today, I was planning on getting up early and going to this huge outdoor flea market, El Rastro, but when I woke up, it was pouring rain. Personally, I'm not a fan of getting wet, so I decided to just stay in for the day and work on homework and summer job applications. We're about to start lunch soon, I think, and they have guests over, so I get to practice my Spanish even more, albeit in a really intimidating setting. But, at the same time, having guests over means she serves really delicious/rare/expensive food...kind of a reward for all my hard work, right? :)

Looks like we're eating! Hasta luego, amigos!