Internet Problems, Tears, Wall Gardens, and a Baptism

Sorry I haven't posted in quite some time. I moved in with my host family last Sunday, and I couldn't connect to the internet until a few days ago. It was super frustrating and I kind of lost it the other day. Frustration mixed with homesickness isn't really a good combination haha. After a rough start to the week, on top of internet problems, I overslept and was 45 minutes late to class on Monday, the week is ending nicely! I really like my host family a lot, they are so nice to me, and they are very welcoming. It's a pretty large household, it encompasses four generations. I have a host mom, Carmen, Her husband, Faruk, her mom, Dulce, her daughter, Nadia, and her son, Omar. I love it because someone is always home, and it's a pretty lively household especially since Omar is 5. He is also the cutest thing EVER! I have been speaking a lot of Spanish with them, and they also help me with my homework. I had to do a group project on a neighborhood in Madrid, and coincidentally, the neighborhood we ended up with was the one I live in. I got some great information from my host family about the neighborhood. It's called las Letras, and it's very rich in history as well as where the Prado, Reina Sofía, and Thyssen museums are located. The picture above is a wall garden found in las Letras! Also, today my host family took me with them to a baptism for Omar's cousin. It's was really fun to meet their extended family. I chatted a bunch with some of the family members, which was great practice for my Spanish! They all said I spoke really well, so I am feeling pretty proud of myself. This high will last until Monday at 9:00 when I have grammar class. Then, I will go back to feeling like I know zero Spanish and being extremely overwhelmed.  

Old Friends/New Friends

I haven't posted in a few days and a lot has happened! On Wednesday, a few friends and I went to Retiro Park. It is a huge park located near the center of Madrid. It is so big and it is so beautiful, even in the winter. I am posting some pictures from the park in a slideshow at the bottom of my blog so check them out. We had a lot of fun exploring the park and of course taking a bunch of pictures including the one above. After Retiro, I got to go and meet my host family before I move in with them on Sunday! I was definitely really nervous to meet them but also excited. I had to go there all by myself, thankfully I was able to make it there without getting lost. It is really hard to navigate Madrid because the streets aren't linear and perpendicular to each other. They are all over the place, and they aren't very well marked either. Thank goodness for google maps. I put a map on my ipod and managed to get there "sin complicaciónes" However, I did accidentally ring the wrong buzzer twice. I literally sat there for 5 minutes waiting to get buzzed in, thinking my host family already hated me. Of course once I figured out my mistake they buzzed me in right away! It was so nice to meet all of them. They are actually a four generational family! I have a host mom and dad, and then the mom's mom and the mom's daughter and the daughter's son live with them as well. I met all of them except the daughter. They were so nice and the daughter's son is named Omar and he is pobably around 5 years old. He is so cute and he talks a lot which is great for me! The next day, after my classes, I went to visit Marina and her family. Marina was an exchange student that stayed with my family about 9 years ago. She came for a month in the summer of of 2002 and 2003 and in 2004 my whole family went to visit her family here in Madrid. I got to visit them again in the summer of 2008 when I came to Madrid on a trip through my high school. It was so nice to see her and her family again! I ate lunch with Marina and her mom and then chatted with them for a while after. I was happy because I was there for 3 hours and I spoke in Spanish the entire time! It was a baby step towards fluency!

First night out/First day at school

Since I am studying abroad through Marquette University, almost all of my classmates are Packer fans. Gag me haha. So of course I would end up at an Irish bar where the Packer game was on TV. It was a little weird to see a football game on TV in Spain but it was still a fun night! Apparently after a few drinks or "copas" as they say here, my Spanish is quite good. I got quite a few compliments of my speaking abilities!  However, we all had to get up for class this morning at 7:30......with jet lag still somewhat present, lets just say it was a rough morning for all of us. Especially since as soon as we got to  the Complutense (the University I am studying at) we all had to take a 5 page grammar placement exam. I don't know how since I wasn't feeling so awake, but I somehow managed to do well since I placed into the higher grammar section. Of course the higher section would meet at 9am and the lower at 11am. Today we just had orientation and the placement exam but tomorrow I have my grammar class followed by a literature lecture. I am really excited because I think I am going to join an intramural soccer team here at the Complutense! A few of my friends were talking about it today and I think we are all going to sign up. Also, it is really interesting how different universities are here in Spain than in the U.S. A lot more money goes into the upkeep up universities back home. The buildings are really old and simple here. Also there is a ton of graffiti all over the campus. It is a little saddening because the campus is really pretty and it has a nice view of the city as well. I feel like at Loyola everything is so showy and well kept, and it is the complete opposite here. However, it doesn't really bother me much. It's just different it is kind of intriguing!

Museo del Jamón

After a goodnight's sleep, the jet lag is much, much better! Today we went to a place called Museo del Jamón for lunch. There are tons of these all over Madrid, and they are restaurants as well as meat shops. The picture above is what you see as soon as you walk in the door. I was in awe and slightly horrified at how much meat was hanging from the wall. It was very heartbreaking to think of all the animals killed to make all that meat. Anyways we got a huge table because the entire group ate together. This was the meal where we all realized how different the food is in Spain. We all got to choose a dish for our first course and our second course. Most of us chose paella for our first choice. The paella was very delicious, however it had mussels and shrimp in it. The shrimp was good, but in Spain, they cook the shrimp and it still has the entire shell on it, the legs are still there, and its head and eyes. I was so freaked out by the eyes that I had to cut the head off and hide it under a mussel. I couldn't eat the shrimp with its eyes staring at me from the plate. It was just too weird and it made me feel that much more guilty for eating it. My friend Hannah order beef and I guess they don't cook their meat very much because it was really red and bloody. I gave her a lot of credit for eating it, because I don't think I could have eaten it. I ordered fish for my second course and I was so afraid it was going to come with the head still on. Thankfully it didn't; however, I had to pick at it a bunch to eat the actual fish because there were a ton of bones to navigate around. It was good fish, though after seeing all the meat on the wall, dealing with the shrimp eyes on my plate, and seeing Hannah's almost raw meat, my appetite had diminished a bit. And the cultural adjustment begins!

And suddenly I'm not in America anymore

Well after a semester of preparation, I am finally in Madrid ready to begin a semester of studies, learning, and yeah lots of fun too. Above is the first picture I took here, and yes it really isn't anything special, but it's pretty decent for how jet lagged I am. Arriving at 9am in Madrid on about 1 hours of sleep on the plane has not made for an energetic day. This is wayyyy worse than pulling an all nighter. Thanks to a few cups of coffee and lots of walking, I have managed to stay awake thus far. Though I did consider curling up on the floor of the restaurant we had lunch in to take a little nap. Jet lag really is that bad. Anyways enough complaining about that. The weather here is great. It is in the 50's today, and after being at home in Minnesota it feels almost tropical. It really hasn't quite hit me yet that I am in Spain, it feels really surreal. Of course it will soon be much more familiar!