fiestas sorpresas all around

so this weekend has been a blast. on Friday I went to Carabanchel to hang out with my fellow American Audrey. we met up with her friends and went to a big mall called islazul. the only thing we ended up buying was donuts, even though we were there for like 5 hours. by the end my feet hurt really bad, but it was still awesome to meet audreys friends, who were really nice and funny. it was also my first time riding the buses here in Madrid. it wasn't anything too special, but there was one thing that caught me off guard. whenever we stop, the bus tilts down on the side that people enter. I would assume its so people don't have to step up so much or if someones in a wheelchair or something. I don't know. but yeah. different. so we hung out with her friends, then went back to her piso. since we hadn't eaten, her parents took us out to a Chinese restaurant. yay Chinese food! at first they brought out these Styrofoam looking chip things. surprisingly they weren't too bad... but anyway then we got these huge springrolls. I could've just eaten that and been full, but of course, we got more; a noodle dish, lemon chicken, rice, and Chinese bread, which I  might add, is not nearly as good as Spanish bread. but overall it was delicious. so then we went back to the piso. so my grandparents piso is relatively big, it has a kitchen, a big living/dining room, 2 bathrooms and 2 bedrooms and an extra little sitting room. but audreys was extremely small (but her family has some pretty sweet wall hangings) anyway, she has the 2 bedrooms and bathrooms, and then the kitchen/diningroom/living room are all like one big room with a counter kindof cutting off the kitchen. but I liked it. so we got into our pj's, layed down, and talked and listened to music for like an hour. its so cool to think that without rotary, I would never have met Audrey, but here we are, a Californian and Iowan having a sleepover in Spain. just think about that. wow. so we slept until 1045 when her mom woke us up because I had to leave. but we ate breakfast (healthy cereal, ew, and freshly squeezed orange juice, yum) and watched this video that her parents had made of a ton of pictures of them, I think it was some anniversary video or something, but anyway, her parents have been to so many places! its so sweet. I want to travel like that too. I was impressed. so yeah, then I left and came home and hung out for a while.

thennnnn at 1800 my dad and I headed out to our grandparents to watch the Barcelona- Real Madrid game. I ended up not watching it (we lost anyway) but sitting and watching tv with my abuela. she is seriously so awesome. she does cross-stitching (called petipua -like petty pwah- in Spanish if I spelled that right. it doesn't look or sound like a Spanish word but that's what it is, I think...) and she has alzheimers, so she always repeats things but its so fun to talk to her and chat, and since im understanding so much more, its just, I don't know, its great.

 

her beautiful orchids

                                           and her. she is precious. and her name is matilde.

so then we hung out there until about 2030 and then headed out to the bar thing where the party was being set up. I went in, and started helping put out food and stuff like that. then more people were coming in, and I talked with some family and met some of Ana's friends. then at 2130 Ana came. she came in, we sang, and then everyone just hung and talked for a while. then 2 of her best friends, Raquel and Irene, gave a little speech, then we talked some more. throughout this whole thing I met a ton of people, many of which were extremely attractive guys, so I was having a lot of fun. although, im still at that stage where I don't understand when people talk really quickly with each other, and with the loud music on top of that, I was a third wheel most of the time. but I still had fun. a while later they brought out a cake thing and ana blew out a candle. it wasn't really a cake, more like, jeez I don't even know how to describe it, but it was good. so then at about 2300 the parents went home and people started getting drinks and smoking and such. I did take a couple sips of my friends drinks when offered, but other than that I was still just hangin around. then finally at 0100 one of the guys and Irene drove me home because the rest of them were going to a discoteca, and i'm not 18. but I was glad because I was tired. so I got home and slept 11 hours. it was amazing. but here are some pictures from the partay

 

ana (right) and irene

 

Irene and Raquel giving a speech

 

the cake thing. also, that guy in the blue shirt, diego, was super nice and actually talked to me, so that was a plus

 

 

so yeah, that was super fun. also I want to add that today we went out to lunch with our grandparents, and for desert they had these little tubes, like tooth paste tubes, that were filled with either mango or raspberry stuff, and you just squeezed it into your mouth. lol they were actually really good....

 

M

huelga

so from October 22-24 there was a huelga. a strike. so apparently there was a change in the budget for education, and there were protests all over Spain. i'm actually watching the news right now, and it seems like it was mostly peaceful protest, but there was some violence as well. so as far as I know, it was only for public schools, and I know some people who didn't have it. but anyway, I had the option of not going to school, but we have an exam tomorrow, and I don't really have anything else to do, so I went anyway. so the first day, Tuesday, I think only 2 people from my class didn't come. then Wednesday, 11, and today 12. I think. but today the teachers also had their huelga, whereas the other days they had to come to work. so it mostly didn't affect classes, except today. today for bio our teacher didn't show, so we went outside and played soccer, which was actually really fun. and then in French since there were only like 10 people we watched videos and listened to music. so that was fun. so yeah, not too exciting, but different. I was talking to my sister and she said it's really common to have strikes here so I should probably expect another sometime during the year. so yeah, here's a picture of what was on the news

yep, that's whats happenin. but this weekend should be exciting. tomorrow i'll be going to a friends house and then on Saturday is my sisters surprise birthday party! my mom told me i'll be the photographer, so it should be quite exciting. so yeah, an update is soon to come

M

carrera de la ciencia

So today I did my first 10k! I woke up at 730 and we (my mom and I) left at about 8 with our neighbor Lola. The race was in Madrid, mainly in the street 'Serrano'. So we were supposed to meet up with rotary people beforehand, but we ended up not finding them. We also didn't get a number or tracker or anything, but whatever. So this race, this race, man, there were like 1000 to 2000 people. Which is why we couldn't find the rotary people. But we started by ourselves and ran about 3k until I saw a couple of my friends. But these girls were cross country runners, so I waited for the other people, who they said were a bit behind them. So I joined them and ran until the 5k mark. Which made me really proud. I've only ever done one 5k before, and I didn't run it all, so I was glad I ran that whole way. So then there was water and stuff and we started walking. I ended up walking with Audrey, one of my close friends, and we were talking and we went to about 5.7k and we saw that people were turning up ahead. Now Audrey also didn't have a number or tracker thing, so we're just like 'we're tired, let's just take a side street and cross over'. So we did. We ended up skipping about 3k. Lol but then we ran and finished with a time of 1 hour 03min. Yay! Haha, after that we waited for the other students and were just like 'yeah we ran the whole thing!'. It was great. Now since we didn't have the numbers, we couldn't get our official time or whatever, or get the tshirts or food that they were handing out (you got it in a bag after you turned in the tracker). But one of the rotary people gave me hers, so that was super nice. So yeah, then we just hung out and talked for a while, then headed home. So overall it was really fun, and I got to see more of Madrid and exercise and yeah, I liked it.

examenes

sooooo I recently had 2 exams. today was biology, and a couple days ago I had math. so for math we got like 8 problems (we're doing radicals and logorithms), and we had 2 pieces of paper. one with all the problems and an answer sheet. the answer sheet was like a folder type thing (seriously i'm forgetting English, but it was two sheets that are connected, you know?) lol anyway, the teacher was trying to explain to me in English and she was like 'this one, eraser' for the problem sheet, and 'this one, neat' for the answer sheet. so we did all the problem, then put the problem sheet inside the answer sheet and handed it in. so yeah, it was easy though. I like math. so then yesterday we got our results. I got an 8. out of 10. which I would say is pretty good. BUT! I would've gotten a 9.5 but I missed a problem! I seriously just didn't do it, like I didn't see it. so that kinda sucked knowing I could've done better if I weren't stupid. ha, but that's okay, because some people got like 2.5 so I felt smart anyway. but it was odd, I was talking to my friend Morata about the grades and stuff and he was saying 5 and 6 were normal. and I don't know exactly what the passing grade is, but just knowing that a 50 or 60 percent is normal is so odd. in America its all if you don't get and A or a B then you suck. which in my mind doesn't really make sense. I mean, they're testing us on these things that most of us will never use again, and if we only know half of it? we fail. if it's out of 10 questions and we don't know 3? that's a C.  so yeah anyway back to Spain. today I took the bio test. my teacher told me I could bring a dictionary if I wanted, but seeing as I don't have one... but I didn't really need it anyway. there were 36 multiple choice questions, and one where we had to draw some meiosis stuff. so overall it went pretty well, I would say. i'm thinking maybe an 8 or something. but that'd be good. aaaand tomorrow I have a French exam, and Monday a chem exam. so those should be fun as well.

but anyway, school is good. and also today I met an English teacher who is from New York! it was cool talking to him because I had no idea that he was there. so yeah, that was cool. anyway, I haven't really done  many exciting things lately. but coming up on sunday I'm running a 10k. yeahhhh i'm not actually running the whole thing, lol. but it'll be fun because i'll be with other exchangers. and also next week we're having a surprise party for my sister ana, so that should also be fun.

so yeah. Spain.

M

Hueca de San Blas

so today a ton of exchange students and their families went outside of Madrid to hike some mountains. It was awesome. we (my mom, her friend and I) drove 2 girls, Audrey and Jam, to the base of the mountain we were about to climb. so we had left at about 0830 and we got there at about 950 so it was a fun drive. we arrived and all the students and their families were hanging out and talking. it was awesome seeing all my friends again. even just after a week I missed them. we stood around and talked for a bit and then headed up. we hiked for about an hour and a half or something like that, stopping every once and a while for everyone to catch up, and eventually stopped to have lunch. we sat around and ate for about and hour then headed back down. on the way down I walked with Jam and we talked about religion and life and it was super fun. once we got to the bottom again, we all talked for a bit, then my mom, her friend, Jam and I headed out. saying goodbye again was sad but hopefully i'll be seeing everyone again next sunday at the 6k race, which i'm super excited about.  so yeah, here are some pictures.

recientemente

last Thursday: this was the day of Inda's funeral. at about 8:00 pm my mom, dad, and I drove to a church in pozuelo. we stood outside for about half an hour while family and friends came and I met a ton of people. many cheeks were kissed that day. then at 8:30 we went in and sat down. first the priest said some things, then one of Inda's daughters said some things, then the priest said more things, basically. lol but no, a lot of the times while the priest was talking we had to stand and repeat things and once we kneeled and yeah, I don't really know what happened. there was also communion. but yeah, that was mostly it. so then I met more people, and ended up sitting with my neighbor Carlos, who's 16 I think, and talking about random stuff. since I didn't really know anyone his mom Lola (one of my favorite people, their family is just awesome overall) offered to take me home while my mom and dad stayed and talked with family. so I went home with them, and after we got back I went on a walk with Carlos because he needed to take his dog out. he said if I was ever bored or anything we could hang out, so that was nice. he also invited me to hang out with him and his friends the next day, but they ended up not doing anything.

Friday: school, talked with Laura and Sergio and Groberth for a bit, came home, sat around, the usual

Today: so today I woke up and ate breakfast and had just started to Skype one of my friends Mary when my dad offered to take me into Madrid to visit a few places. and obviously I had to say yes, so I told Mary we'll Skype later (shoutout to you Mary, you're awesome), packed my camera, and we headed out. we took the train to principe pio and the metro to opera, and walked to the palacio real. from here it's just gonna be pictures and captions. so here it is
















so this is the palacio real. today there was a fiesta type thing because the king of Spain was coming and a ton of people were there to see him. I heard a ton of languages so that was really fun. there was a big group of Asians, some people from Germany, I heard English and i would assume from England, but I couldn't hear well enough to catch an accent, and there were obviously people from Spain as well. so that was cool to see. we didn't stay to see the king but we did see a few horses start walking down the road.

these are some street views. pretty sweet, I know

 

so this is the big cathedral we went in. its really close to the palacio real.

on the inside: the ceilings and stained glass windows were amazing.

another view from the outside.

so here i what i more or less understood was something about the saint of Madrid. but i got to go up those steps and look up close so that was cool

 view from the entrance. on the right and left there are more hallways with different statues and paintings and such. if you've been reading this regularly i went to el Escorial recently, but you can't take pictures there, but this is really similar.

this is the church underneath the cathedral. we didn't go any farther because you had to pay, but we saw some pictures and its basically a ton of columns and other paintings and i don't know what else. so pretty cool

 so outside of the church these little kids were getting pictures and they're all color coordinated and its just really cute

plaza mayor! i had been here already, but we went and there were a ton of people because of the fiesta thing. i really don't like using the word fiesta for this because it wasn't really a party, but that's what my dad called it, so yeah. fiesta. plaza mayor. lots of people.

this is me and my favorite part of the plaza mayor behind me. you can kind of see the paintings on the building, but i just love it because the rest is brick and this part is just awesome. so yeah that's a bad description but i just really like it

 

a mini plaza that i forget the name of.

 and of course the street performers. this group i especially liked because there was a bassist :) but we saw quite a few quartets. it always surprises me and makes me smile that the majority of the players are young. i just think that's pretty cool. if i lived in opera, i think i would want to find an instrument and play and try and make money. that would be cool.





so yeah, that's kind of a summary of the last few days. tonight my friend Jameela is coming and we're going to watch an indian movie and she'll sleep over, and tomorrow we're going hiking in the mountains! so that'll be super fun.

so yeah. hasta luego!

maria + spain = love

So today my love Spain and I had our one month anniversary!

So I went to school, as usual, then afterwards I was walking home with groberth, and I saw Laura! So if you didn't know, I met Laura on the first day of school and we set up a time to meet in the mornings but she always sleeps in, and she's in a different grade, so I don't get to see her often. So I saw her and the three of us walked to her house, where tomorrow I am forcing her to wake up on time. Lol. Anyway, we hung out with her for about half an hour outside just talking and having fun. We got on the topic of church and she said she has this group thing on Saturdays that I can hopefully go to so that's awesome. But then she went inside and groberth and I walked to my house, and he continued on to his house. So that was all fun.

Then later my grandparents came over for a bit and one of my moms friends. I'm not exactly sure why but it was nice to see them :) my moms friend said she had a son and that he can show me around Madrid sometime so that sounds sweet.
So yeah, it was a pretty normal day, but its cool to think I've been here a month. I can definitely tell my Spanish is improving, and I'm getting closer to my friends so I'm really starting to feel at home here.

So that's all for today.

One month complete

visado

So when you get a visa for Spain, you can only get it for 3 months, and then you have to extend it here in Spain to a year. Well, for us exchange students that's what we had to do. Anyway, rotary planned a day where us kids from Madrid would all go to the police station or whatever and get all of our visas extended together. So alone this would take many hours of waiting in line and talking with the people and getting all the papers, etc, but since rotary organized it we got to zip right through, which was awesome. So most of the paperwork I already had, but there was one thing that I lacked: enpadronamiento. Which is basically a piece of paper saying I live in this house and have parents. More or less. Anyway, to get the paperwork for that, last Friday I got to skip the beginning of school and walk to the place where I was to get it (I have no idea what the name was so sorry for the very vague description), but it was only like a 15 minute walk, so it was close. So I got to sleep in (yay) and I went, showed my paperwork, and they said I had to come back with my dad since I'm not 18. Yeaaaaah. So I went to the rest of school, and afterwards I told my dad and we set up another appointment for today (Monday). So today we went and all was smooth and I got my enpadronimiento. Easy. Aaand I got to skip the second half of school today. So that was sweet.

So then today to extend our visas we had to go to the police station. I'm very proud to say I went by myself. I had to take a train to Pirámides, then switch to the metro and take that to Aluche. I met up with my friend Jameela and we walked the 5 minutes to get there together. We were about 20 minutes early so we just went through the small security thing, sat down and waited. And waited. Eventually we saw some other exchangers, but they were waiting outside of security, so we told them to come in and were overall confused about what to do next. We knew we were waiting for a guy named francisco, but we had no idea what he looked like, or when he was coming. So we waited some more and we saw more students and we were all just together and waiting and finally francisco came and we went inside. And I got to first. I just showed my papers, gave a couple fingerprints, and that was it. Now in 25 days they'll send my card or whatever and i'll be good :) so after I was done I waited for Jameela to finish so we could go part of the way home together. During that time I talked to the exchangers I hadn't seen since orientation, and it's so fun to hear peoples stories and just talk about exchange stuff. So then after Jam finished, we headed out, and got on the metro. For her, she got off at Oporto and I kept going, but we made plans to meet up Saturday, so I'm pumped for that.

I also had an adventure yesterday! I went to Opera and walked to Sol (puerta del sol) to meet up with some exchange friends for a one month vent/hangout session. There were 7 of us total, and we walked to El Retiro, a big park close to Sol. I again didn't have my camera, because I don't want it stolen, but some of my friends got pictures so hopefully I can post those soon. Anyway, we walked to the park, found a shady spot, and chatted for about an hour. Then at about 1530 we went to a restaurant where they were having a special where everything was one euro. We walked in, waited a couple minutes for a table, and sat down. At this place, the menu had 100 different little sandwiches you could choose from, and you had this paper where you wrote down all you wanted, including drinks, then you had to take it up, pay, and get your drinks. Then they would call your name when your food was ready, and you had to go up and get it. So that was new, but the food was really good. After that we went back to Sol, talked, and then a couple girls had to go home, so 4 of us went into a couple of shops to pass the time, and my friends got postcards and some souvenirs. After that a couple other people were going to join us, but we ended up waiting for them long enough that I actually had to go home before they came. So at about 1820 I walked back to Opera, got on the metro, and headed to Principe Pio to switch to the train. Howeverrrrr, I ended up not having enough money, and my card doesn't work on the train and metro machines. So I had to call my dad, wait an hour, and go home with him. So that was fun. Not. But an experience all the same. While I was waiting I went up to the security thing and asked if i was using my card incorrectly or something, and they happened to see my wallet, which is Atletico de Madrid (if you didn't know there are 2 Madrid teams, real and atletico) and they were joking aroung like 'nope, we cant help a fan of atletico' (thanks mom). so that was fun that I understood and could respond to a joke. I can definitely tell my Spanish has been improving. So yeah, then I went home.

okay so I know this post has some serious chronology probs, but here are some pictures I took of the area around my house after I got back from getting my enpadronamiento today. so basically when I was skipping school. but it was a beautiful day out so whatevs.

this is my street. looking to the left from my house.

this picture doesn't do it justice, but I have a relatively good view of the mountains from the park across the street. in iowa you don't see mountains so I really like it

 a walkway in the park

         graffiti. graffiti everywhere, man

pretty little pictures. the vegetation is so bipolar here. I can go from being in a really green, tree-y area to taking two steps and being in this dry, desert. I think its quite cool, but its also a bit odd...

I just found this amusing. I mean, come on, its like the street of freaking unicorns. also its hard to see, but in the top left of the sign, theres a bear leaning against a tree, and that's symbolic of Madrid because in puerta del sol there's a statue like that. so yeah. know your stuff                                      

                                                                      

this, my friends, is the giant ant house I found. it was pretty cool to watch all the ants carrying their little piece of dead grass and adding it to the pile. nature at its cutest

s

so after a while I started getting bored/creative and decided to take pictures of my cow-keys. so everyone in my family has a key and we all have our own little keychain thing and mine is this cute little cow, so I wanted to take some shots of it in the park because im weird like that. lol

so most roads aren't brick, just the little 'calles', like little streets. *notice cow*

and really, what would any photoshoot be without any selfies?

and finally my precious cow again :)









Sooooo I just got back from my second rotary meeting. I got my money! Finally! So that was good, but otherwise the meeting was pretty uneventful. I'm the only inbound in my club so I was the only young one. But I did meet a girl named bernisa (I hope that's how you spell it but we all know I always get these sort of things wrong) who was about 25 and she lived in the Dominican Republic until 5 years ago and we talked a bit and she explained to me what people were saying. So that was really cool because usually its all old people. And now here I am, typing away.

I want to make a special shout-out today for my friend Sean, happy birthday!

Until next blog, my friends