¡Vivo en un apartamento!

    I’m finally living in a hostel! No more living with 5 other people in a room or having some Austrian lady telling me to turn off my dinky night light or hear British people screaming profanities in the wifi lab! I have a closet and a desk and a kitchen! I’m so happy right now. I don’t know my roommates very well yet but I just got some drinks with two out of the three tonight and they seem very nice. It’ll be interesting though since none of us share a common native language.
   This week, I started the TEFL class. So far, so good, but it feels like high school; we’re talking 9-3:30 days and homework everyday.  Today I did an oral presentation and a grammar level test but as the weeks go on we’ll get off the topic of theory and more into actual training for teaching with activities to do with our students and stuff like that. 
    On Monday, I went on a walking tour of madrid and I was such a tourist, just asking nerdy questions and, yes, I even used that nifty waist strap my camera came with. It really came in handy! Here’s some cool facts about Madrid:
1. The symbol of Madrid is a bear getting drunk off fermented fruit from a tree
2. When the Bourbons took over, the King had the Royal Palace burned; in order to make it look like an accident, he hosted a Christmas party somewhere else for all the townspeople.
3. Salvador Dali failed art school when he laughed that the teacher was actually going to even have to grade his overwhelming talent for the final exam.
4. Hemingway’s old apartment is now Alcoholics Anonymous. (Look at the building that juts out on the right in this photo)
    Food for thought: although I love laid-back Spain, I realize the culture doesn't always bode well for me. Tonight my friends said more or less translated, "Oh let's go home." Since I have class tomorrow that idea sounded delightful since I would be returning home anyways.  What that actually meant, however, was make a round-about trip to another bar and then go home.  And yet I'm supposed to be tranquila after just walking 15 minutes in the opposite direction of the apartment!  And I doubt your thirty minute stop, amigos, actually means 30 minutes.  Perhaps I need to just relax..or take everything the Spanish say with a grain of salt.
    Kinda sad I won’t be at the home game this weekend. And DZ’s mixing with Pi Kapp on top of it- no drunkaroos and multi-beer bongs for me unfortunately:(
    Tomorrow I’m finally going grocery shopping! I’ve had enough of the 1 euro bocadillos con jamón. My next task is to tackle Spanish cooking! Until next timeee.