friends and fun

just to let you know, I wrote this, went to change the youtube song, accidently exited out of this tab, thought it was deleted, finished rewriting it, posted, then saw this was still here. ARGH. but I like this one better so yeah. here ya go

wow. what a day. I did a ton of schtuff today.

first, I woke up at 6:40. yeah, that's right. but it was all for naught. you see, I thought I had to leave for school at 7:30, but apparently not. we actually left at 9:30. yeahhh, so I was all ready and stuff, so I just went on facebook and youtube and just busied myself. but I actually got a little bit more sleep right before we had to leave, so that was good. anyway, Ana, Raquel (Ana's friend) and I headed off to my school, Gerardo Diego. we stopped for a couple minutes for them to roll their own cigarettes, but otherwise its an easy walk. smoking here is extremely common, so its not odd at all that they do that. anyway, we continued walking. its only about 10 minutes. we got to the school and went in, looking for where I had to go and asking around, the usual. so we finally got to this room, where Ana and Raquel left me to fend for myself. however, about 3 minutes earlier we had asked a girl where to go so I was kind of following her and she was friendly. Her name is Lora, I believe, and we immediately became friends. anyway, this room had desks, but apparently, like, everyone had to go in there so all the desks were full and we had to sit on the floor. there were about 100 kids in there. yeah, pretty tight and hot. there were about 10 teachers in the front, and one was speaking, I presume about the rules, although I only caught a little bit of the speech. i'm in the 4th year of ESO, which i'm not going to explain right now, and Lora is in the 2nd year of bachillerato (above me). so after the speech we had to go with our grades and get a tour of part of the school. so at first they called the grades inder ours, so we had a bit of time to stand around. Lora introduced me to one of her friends, Alex (i'm not sure if that's his Spanish name or what, but that's what he said so I don't know) who exchanged to seattle last year. Yay I found an exchange student! he spoke great English, as did Lora, so the three of us immediately became friends. they're the kind of people I love to be around, just funny and nice and awesome. so yeah, that was cool. anyway, I missed the call for my grade, so Lora said to me 'I think you have to go now' but I had no idea where so I was just like, um, right. so I went out of the room and joined this group of students, but they were apparently the 1st year of bachillerato, I found out after asking someone. all in Spanish let me remind you. so I asked 'where is 4 de la ESO?' and theyre just like, 'idk man Spanish Spanish spanish' that I did not understand. so eventually I heard the word secretaria so I went to the secretary and im like 'um im American/stupid and I have no idea where im supposed to be' but I don't really know how to talk so she had no idea. and this lady, man, she looked annoyed and pissed, so I was a bit afraid to say anything, but this other lady came out and was nice and led me to someone who spoke English. yay English! so she basically told me that I had missed my tour, which I was cool with, since I wouldn't have understood anyway. so then I saw Lora and Alex again and explained what was happening and we laughed. it was nice :) its so hard for me to express myself in Spanish so being able to laugh with them was great. at one point a really tall guy, like, really tall, came up to me and said 'so what are you doing here?' lol apparently they don't get many exchangers. I was just like 'uhhhhh, going to school?' lol. so then school was done for the day, but I guess it wasn't really a school day, just the informational meeting thing.  Lora also lives in Aravaca, so we walked most of the way home together. she is super cool, so its great that i'll get to see her a lot.

so I got home. and Ana said she was going with Raquel and one of her friends, Mano (which is hand, so I don't know if that's a nickname or his actual name or what, but whatever) to lunch then to his house. and she asked if I wanted to come, and of course, I did. so I had about an hour, then we left. we took the train to Principe Pio, then the metro all the way to Opera. there we went to McDonald's. it was my first time ordering in Spanish, so I ended up not getting a drink because I was afraid to ask and say it wrong. lol. so we ate outside, and its beautiful during the day, so that was sweet. basically I didn't understand anything, so I watched this little girl play with her balloon and try to catch pigeons. also, during the walk to lunch and everywhere we went after that, we saw many street performers, from singers to a cellist (my favorite) and those guys who do the still life thing. that was pretty sweet. anyway, mcdonalds, it was pretty much the same, except there was someone who came to pick up our trays. yeah. so then we went to mano's house. we did a lot of walking, which I'm not mentioning much, but just seeing parts of Madrid was awesome. I would've had my camera, but i'm very hesitant to bring it anywhere just because I don't want it broken or stolen. and I don't have a phone to take pictures, so that's kinda sad. anyway, we walked through the puerta del sol! that's basically where theres a fountain and statues and maybe an important building but I don't know. so that wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be, but it was still fun :) so we then walked to mano's. it was a really nice little apartment thing. there we just listened to music and they smoked a bit. so after we said goodbye to mano and headed back to Principe Pio. Ana went off to hang out with a different friend of hers, so I stayed with Raquel and her girlfriend Maria that we met up wih. yes, another Maria. but they're super cool and we just sat outside and talked. They taught me a lot of slang and bad words in Spanish, which I think is good to know, but lol it was fun. Maria had gone to Ireland for 5 years earlier, so she had great English and it was easy to communicate and have fun with them.

so then I headed home, by myself, on the train. it was an easy ride but my first time alone. total, throughout the whole day, I had spent a lot on metro and train tickets. probably like 10 euros. yeah. most people have something called a bono, which you buy once a month and then you don't have to pay each time you utilize public transportation. it kinda sucks paying out of my own pocket, but I always have a great time. so I got home and went on youtube for like 2 hours, which is always fun. then it was about 21:30 and my parents were out so I made mah own dinnaaa. my mom had already cooked rice yesterday so all I did was cook some turkey to go with it. it was great. I also just tried cola-cao, which is the chocolate milk mix of Spain. the milk here is so odd it was hard for me to appreciate it. then Ana got home and she and her friend had pizza, which I didn't have any :( but then they headed out again, and here I am. other rotary students in Spain from other districts are here in Madrid for their orientation (mine is the 20th) so I'm trying to see if I can go and meet them sometime, but we'll have to see.

so finally after 1.5 hours I finish my blog post! yay lol
so yeah, a great day