holaaaaa guapos!!

soooooooooooo Madrid. whats been happening.. the dazed and confused- ness from last week has worn off thanks to a wonderful much needed 12 hour sleep on Saturday night- sooo im beginning to see the city with fresh eyes!

Friday night was craziness!! Me and three girls from my program Chrissie, Tevia, and Erica went out in Malasaña and ahhhh, it was hilarious. First of all let me explain this botellón business. Un botellón is basically where you buy alcohol and drink it in the street kind of like pregaming before you go to the clubs because the drinks there are too expensive. well a few years ago they made drinking in the streets illegal here in spain but this does not stop the Madrileños from basically doing what they want. So this has led to a bit of a peculiar situation where Chinese people will stand on the corners of the streets with bags of beer and you pay one euro for a beer which you then chug on your walk to the bar, etc. there are a ton of these asian people everywhere, but when the police come driving by they have to run off and hide behind cars and stuff because you know.. its illegal. we witnessed this. some poor chinese woman almost diving underneath a parked car to avoid getting arrested for selling cans of beer. spainnn? anyways, the four of us found it completely necessary to botellón so we did. we then met up with this spanish hottie named Carlos and his two friends who my friend Chrissie had met a few nights prior. they took us to this packedddd bar full of spaniards and ahhh it was just a success all around, we chatted with people and at one point i went and met up with the cousin of the italian guy (Cristian) who i had met one of my first days here.. his cousin was visiting so i guess he thought that I would be the best one to show him around Madrid while he had to work?? so i brought him to the bar as well and despite the whole thing of him not speaking any english we managed to have a lovely time dancing. after an hour or so of this bar Carlos and his friends took us to a club filled with spaniards called Pacha in Malasaña. it was awesome, like a huuuuuge night club with awesome music and just sladkjfadskjf. anyways, tevia and i sneaked in without paying the cover charge and the rest of the night progressed quite eventfully with lots of dancing, lots of spanish being spoken, incidents involving hostels, scarves, metro men, VIPs, novios, enrollandose, running into Naomi from the Paris airport haha (??), and you know just adventures. the night ended at 7 am with Tevia, Erica, and Chrissie taking the metro home cause it was open and me meandering just a wee five minutes back to my casa. Manu Chao was right when he said Me Gustas Malasaña.

needless to say, i slept quite late and got up to an empty house cause mi anfitriona went on a weekend trip with her friends to a pueblo outside of Madrid. ive never lived so alone before and im not sure if im really a fan. yes its nice to do my own thing but at the same time things are just more fun with other people around, from the dorms to the Chi Psi house i have always lived in the center of craziness. now its just me haha. and sad thing is cristina is leaving for london next weekend as well, ill be lonely! but hey this means i can turn on the space heater while she is gone haha... did i mention central heating is the greatest invention on earth and not having it is a fail. i feel like im sleeping in the arctic and every morning i wake up with a bit of frostbite on my face... okay its not that bad. but still its cold haha. cristina is bed right now so i dragged the heater into my room and currently i am sitting in front of it writing this post.. im pretty sure she wouldnt care that i use it every now and then but i dont know.. i feel bad hahaa... pero NO PASA NADA!!

so saturday night..

well if there are two things that i have learned in my life it is the following:

1. I can't dance. After all those latin dance classes at Lifetime and my several attempts at swing dancing in San Antonio, ive come to the conclusion that i was born without the gene that gives people this ability to you know like move their body correctly. this conclusion has been reinforced also by the fact that ive seen my mom dance at lifetime and she also lacks this fundamental trait. however, this doesnt mean i dont get down in the club- i do.

moving on...

2. If there is ever some kind of random, a majority of the time embarrassing, event or situation where a person must be volunteered unknowingly to participate in- it will be me.

Thus- On saturday night our group went to a flamenco show in Madrid which was amazing and really great to see, especially in such a local place. we were the only foreigners. After the main show however, the woman began talking about how two people were going to get up on stage and dance flamenco with them. at this point im kind of zoned out due to the craziness of friday night, until i hear my name and Tevia's name. the chosen ones. i really dont know how or why i got chosen but i had to go up on stage and dance FLAMENCO in front of about 50 or so people the majority of them legitimate Madrileños dressed for a classy night on the town. fail chelsea, fail. Tevia had taken dance classes before so she held her own, but then there was the Rubia in the corner clapping and attempting to shake her hips.. not okay. hahahahha.. but i guess it was hilarious in the end and an old man in the corner said that i did a good job.. lies.

anyways, after the show a few of us went out with these spanish boys who are kind of like affiliated with CIEE and kind of serve as our link to the students at our university. one of them is named Juanjo and he has made it known that he has a crush on me and told me that he likes mis ojos. great. i wouldnt say im smitten with mr juanjo in the slightest but hey hes nice i suppose. so we went out with them to this AWESOMEEEE (another awesome) bar called Mi mama era un groupie. (my mom was a groupie). hahah it was the sweet rock and roll bar and had good vibes all around. but alas i was exhausted from clubbin the night before so i hopped in a taxi after about an hour or so back to Malasaña. the taxi driver asked if i was from England.. success.

I slept until 3:30 yesterday and then met up with Tevia and Chrissie for coffee and then later with my italian friend Cristian for drinks who has turned out to be the nicest human being on the face of the earth and just a really great guy all around. cristian took me and tevia to this place called Museo del Jamon which is apparently where all the Gidis (tourists) go according to mi anfitriona (host) haha but this is because everything they have is one euro.. and there are various meats hanging from the ceiling.. strange. we met some of his other friends there including the mexican guy i had met in the beginning of the week as well. it was fun!!

this morning was my first day of class!!! i only had one class from 9:30 to 11 called coloquial spanish which is going to be pretty awesome cause we learn how to actually speak spanish without all that formality that we learn in school. the commute to school took about 45 minutes, walking to the metro stop from my apartment, then metro to the train station, then train to Getafe. it was kind of fun, and the train is relaxing so i dont mind. after class i came home and decided to go exploring so i walked around for like 5 hours by myself around madrid and got some coffee and a bocadillo and then sat in this plaza by myself and watched an old woman feed pidgeons. i need to make some more friends haha. madrid has sooo much to see and so many little cafes to go into.. i could probably spend all my money hopping from one little pastry coffee shop from the next.. its wonderful!!

cristina made a delicious thai soup for dinner tonight and we watched spanish tv together while we ate. or it was american tv but dubbed with spanish voices. which is a really odd experience because i know the actors really dont sound like that at all but here they just imagine it as their real voice. i more or less followed the story line and tried to laugh at the appropriate moments.

now im in bed, about to watch the bachelor which i had to buy off itunes because since im on the Spain network a lot of shows cant be watched for free online outside of the us. its strange. tomorrow i have a class with all spaniards which is more or less a lab in Radio like learning how to make radio shows and such. ultimate success. and then after i have my class of "superior" spanish.. out of 7 levels and 200 or so foreigners i tested into the highest level of spanish class with like 15 others... success as well. okayyyyyyyyyyyyyy... this is all for now!!!!!

CHAU FAMILIA Y AMIGOS!!!!!

Spanish words of the day: GUAY- meaning "cool"; CHUNGO- meaning "not cool"