Cookies!

Hi everyone! I figured I'd update everyone on how things are going since I have a little time.

School has been going great, except last week on Thursday, they announced that my Thermodynamics class has changed hours...again. It's like they have ESP about when my other classes are, because both times this class has moved, it's been conflicting with another class. So, I just have to drop my fun Spanish History Through Cinema class and start taking Spanish Culture Postmodernity, which is equally cool, but I haven't attended class at all because I wasn't supposed to be taking it. Even worse, if I miss a certain number of classes, I can't sit for the final exam, so I have to go talk to some more people because this whole thing isn't my fault. This may sound really stressful, and it was at first, but I think my stress tolerance is increasing or something just by being in Spain. Yay?

The good news is, that's the worst thing that's happened recently :) I visited the Prado again this Sunday with Kruse, who has infinite wisdom over the subjects of the religious paintings because he's studying Theology and knows all these different languages. It's really cool! Both of us talked about how awkward church is here. Both in Germany and the United States, people sing in Catholic masses, but here, it's like a CD playing music for one song, and people just kind of mumble along to the mass. So at least I know I'm not weird for thinking Spanish church is weird.

On Sunday morning, I visited El Rastro (fleat market) again and bought a leather schoolbag! Now I really look like a European...just kidding 8) It's real leather, though, so it actually smells like leather, and lemme tell you, it's a REALLY strong scent. Right now it's airing out on the porch because my room was starting to smell like a tannery, yuck.

Oh yeah, I bought chocolate chip cookies today!! This may not sound that exciting, but cookies aren't really that big here, and I was kinda starting to miss them. (I'm not a big cookie fan in the first place so that's saying a lot.) And I bought different types of tea so now hopefully I can stay awake for my 8 am's. One of these days, I'm going to find somewhere that sells brownies. I miss those too.

Lately, there's been a lot of protests going on in Madrid. Parliament recently approved a law allowing abortion, which is somewhat unusual given the number of Catholics in Spain (it's like 76%.) I've seen a few protests from far away and MAN they're scary!! It's like 20x the GEO protests at U of I; there's so many people, it almost sounds like you're at a football game or something. It's just weird because I haven't seen many protests in my life.

One more thing: it's c-c-c-cold here this week!! The weather was great for the last couple of weeks, but it dipped down again for this week. This morning it was 34F when I was walking to school :S It stinks because I have a lot of early classes, so I have to walk to school when it's really cold. I end up wearing like 4 sweaters and a jacket and looking like a weirdo. Hopefully it gets warmer soon! I'm ready to start wearing dresses!!

I'm gonna make some Manzanilla (Chamomile) tea con anise and get to studying! :) Hasta luego, amigos!