HOLAAAA!!!

Okayyyyy, so lets see, my first weekend back in Madrid after a month of travel. Que pasoooo???

1. On Friday, I took a bus about an hour outside of Madrid to a town called Villanueva de la Cañada!! Two of my friends that took me to Galicia study there, so I went to go visit them for the day. I got off the bus welcomed by beautiful sunny skies and three Spanish boys. Success? We got some food and drinks from the supermarket and then proceeded to spend the entire day BBQing, drinking beer, listening to good music, playing with their dog Lucky, and hanging out with all of their friends from school and all of their neighbors in their big backyard. Reminded me of Boulder and it was awesomeeeeeeeeee. I have been missing that whole vibe, just being able to hang out with cool people. I spent the whole day speaking in Spanish and I met so many nice people!!! It really was a great day with great people!! I was planning on coming back that night, but I ended up staying in Villanueva to go out with all of them. I got home in the morning with my head dizzy with Spanish. So awesomeeee.

2. Saturday the program organized a mini excursion to the park outside of Madrid to go hiking. We hiked for two hours, took a cable car over Madrid, and spent a nice day outside. Would have been better though if I had time to change out of my clothes from the night before. I got straight off the bus from Villanueva to hiking in Madrid. Locuras!

3. On Sunday, Christian- my Italian friend, invited me to his new apartment so he could make me a nice Italian dinner!!! Even more life successes? He lives with 7 people in an apartment and each one of them is a different nationality: Italian, Mongolian, Filipino, El Salvadorian, Bangladesh(i?), and two people from China. Its literally crazy cause they all have so many strange customs and cultural differences that it really is such an interesting experience. The guy from China offered for me to try some of his food that he made and almost had a heart attack when I tried to take some with my hand. I literally think he could have passed out. In China its a super no- no to eat with your hands (my bad) and apparently he gets really disgusted by the Filipino girl cause one day he saw her eating with her hands (this was told to me in a whisper). Then I got talking to the Filipino girl and she worked for a year in a call center before she came to Europe. She told me 80% of the work in the Philippines is at call centers- handling the calls of the annoyed Americans with problems with their cell phones and Xboxes. The first question she asked me when I told her I was from the US was what cell phone company I used. She was telling me that the first few days of her job was like literally traumatizing cause everyone would cuss at her and say the meanest things and she just had to get over it. And they went through weeks of accent training so they could understand how different people in america talk, for instance the accent of a black person from Philadelphia vs a southern belle from Mississippi. I literally was entranced with her story and it was surprising when she told me that she actually loved her job. Now she works as a maid in Madrid, having previously worked as an AuPair in Sweden. She said she likes the people from Scandinavia better because they are more respectful and treated her as part of the family. Craziness. Anyways, the pasta that Christian made for me was delicious and afterwards we walked down to La Latina to meet up with Chrissie and her spanish friend for some cañitas :)

4. Last night was free yoga again at the local squat in Malasaña!!! Haha I convinced my friend from class to come with me (he was pretty sketched out when I first told him about it), and also Krystal and Christian came!! So the four of us got trekked over there with our yoga mats and spent a lovely 2 hours doing “athletic yoga”. Even the yoga is more relaxed here in Spain. It consisted mostly of breathing exercises, easy stretches, and a few sun salutations. I like this version of athletic yoga! Afterwards, we were all nice and relaxed and happy so we walked over to Palentino (my bar) and got some bocadillos and cañas. Success for life.

Right now I am on the train going to schooool. The sun is finally out and its getting warmer!! I’ll probably go running today in Retiro and look for the Togo man...

PORTUGAL trip is coming up in less than two weeks!!!!!! We just finished booking all of our hostels yesterday, so we are set to gooo :)

Also Jess and I are firming up plans for the summer. Due to very limited cash, we are going to do a work exchange at a hostel somewhere in Europe, depending where they accept us!! I applied to 12 yesterday and Jess is sending out more this week. One in Ireland already said yes and another in Scotland. But we are holding out to get one a little more south and with a beach!! After the hostel we want to go to Greece and hopefully stop in Austria/Hungary on the way there. We will seeeeeee :)

So yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, good stuff.