i hope everyone has noticed the new picture!!! Yup that is me dancing flamenco. Or trying. hahahaha

some quick fun facts:

-opening the doors has proven a bit difficult, it is always a game deciding whether i want to push or pull, always choosing wrong, always looking super awkward entering the store haha

-this coloquial spanish that i am learning in class really does work! I tried speaking "coloquially" last night with this spanish guy and apparently it made me really funny cause he was cracking up hahaha.. success?

-when i grow up i want my entire room to be made out of a big space heater

-i ate a loaf of fresh bread today :)

-to get to school i take the metro from noviciado to sol, then i get off and try to act all rushed like everyone else and book it to Cercanias which is what the train is called, and i take the C4 train directed towards Parla to Getafe where my campus is. My stop is called Las Margaritas. It is then about a 10 minute walk to campus from the train station.

-I am taking 4 classes- Coloquial Spanish, Superior Spanish (yea thats right.. superior), Laboratory in Radio, and Audiovisual Narration. I have the same teacher for my two spanish classes and she is one of the best teachers I have ever had!

-EL CORTE INGLES. I cant even begin to describe. hahahaha its like a super target as in it has everything on the face of the earth but its like the quality of Macys or something, just like a big department store, and Madrid has one on every corner.

-REBAJAS=SALES!!!!! it is sales time in Madrid meaning everyone is out shopping. Take me to a store called Desigual. Me gusta.

OKAYYYY- SO MADRID UPDATES:::

this place is craziness!!!!

Cristina was in London this past weekend, and I am guessing she is still there now cause I havent seen her yet hahaha. So it was basically like having my own apartment which was like half the time fun and half the time kind of lonely. But anyways- the weekend- Thursday night me, Chrissie, a girl named Charlotte, and Tevia did the whole botelloning business on the metro platform with all the other awesome kids in malasaña. We went to a bar and got mojitos then headed to Club Joy! Which is one of the top clubs in Madrid and filled with lots of internationals. Because I am super slick I got a kid who had already been in the club to lick his hand and put his re entry stamp onto my hand so I could get in FO FREE and bypass the hour long line outside. it worked- successss. Joy was una locuraaaa- I danced, danced, danced, ran into a kid from San Antonio (?), and basically foxed it up with my heels on. hahaha. of course we got home at 7 in the morning, chrissie spent the night and we ended up waking up to a nasty rainy Friday in Madrid. Sooo, we got up and bought some bocadillos from a cafe in Malasana then walked across the street and bought crepes and then came back and watched Love in the Time of Cholera at my house. Not a good movie!!!!! hahaha. Anyways, that night tevia and i went to a bar called El Tigre which is really famous for their tapas that they give out for free with drinks. The place was PACKED! and we talked to some nice spaniards and drank delicious mojitos!!! We called it an early night because on Saturday me, Tevs, and Chrissie went to the Reina Sofia! one of the big 3 art museums here in Madrid!!! We saw Picasso's Guernica and some awesome paintings by Dali who I think is my new favorite painter besides Monet and a cool exhibition of newspapers from around the world post 9/11. It was a cool place, but like I learned in Greece I am not sure museums are exactly my speed. Nor was it Tevias hahaha, when I asked if she was done with looking at art she replied "ive been done for 20 years" hahaha i guess you had to be there but it was funny. We amused ourselves by going up and down the glass elevator for a bit why Chrissie enjoyed herself thoroughly meandering through all the different rooms. Anywaysss, after that Tevs and I headed to the token Irish bar to watch the Manchester United soccer game with other non-spaniards and thennnn we headed to KAPITALLLLLLLLL!!!!! it was chrissies 21st birthday! so we of course needed to go to the top club in all of Madrid.. and seriously it was CRAZYYYYY. and soooooooooooooo awesome. Ive never been to anything better I cant even describe why it was crazy but one of my distinct memories is this like gust of air they would blow from the ceiling to cool off the crowd and it turned the whole room foggy for a second and I dont know it was insane hahahah. The night involved dancing on shaky tables, talking in Spanish, running into a girl from Williamsburg (?), going up and down to all the 7 levels, singing, hearing about 5 thousand glasses break throughout the night, and getting two slices of pizza with the rest of the Madrid nightlife crew at this one pizza shop in Sol at 7 in the morning. Took the metro home, woke up with a hefty RESACA and decided to do some exploring in the rain with Chrissie to an area of Madrid called Chueca. We got coffee and recovered and chatted and overall had a peaceful Sunday followed by homework and solo time in this apartment.

anyways, sorry for such a detailed play by play hahaha

READY FOR ANOTHER WEEK AT SCHOOOOOL :)

mission: sit with spaniards in the cafeteria instead of people from my program.

LOVE YOU ALLLLLLLLLLL

HULLOOOOOO

ahhh so today was fantastic! a complete 180 from yesterday where i sat alone in the lunch room and no one talked to me in class. i had three classes today all in spanish, all direct enrollment, all with only SPANIARDS. it was intense. the first class was my recitation more or less in my Radio Laboratory. I got there pretty early and was talking myself out of going and wondering what the heck i was doing there trying to actually be in an actual class taught only in spanish, but then this really wonderful guy named Victor started talking to me and asking me where I was from and all that and basically like took me under his wing hahaha. and then i met the teacher and he was so nice and undersstanding and i instantly felt better. class started. me and about 20 or so spaniards who all know each other pretty well because of the way the university system is set up here they basically take all classes with the same group of people cause they dont have much choice of classes they want to take. i met another kid named alessandro who was sitting next to me and he was as nice as can be and super cool. we then had to split up into groups that we would be in for the rest of the semester so i am in a group with alessandro, victor, and some spanish girls who thought that it was very "GUAY" that i was from the United States haha. this seems to be a school with lots of internationals so i lucked out that in my direct enrollment class i am the only foreigner so i still am somewhat intriguing and unique. anyways the class was lots of fun and the other kids in the class seemed great, we did this one activity where we basically had to do a 30 second radio show over the microphone in like a recording studio so you know i had to do it. speak in spanish in front of the whole class and introduce myself. ahhhh. then i had my next lecture which was audiovisual narration. pretty much everyone in my little recitation was in the lecture so i sat with alessandro and his friend pablo and the girls from my group. at one point the teacher asked if someone who was a native english speaker could read this like headline thing and alessandro more or less called me out so then i had to speak in a voz alta in front of my whole lecture. later on in the class the professor asked me to translate the word "gutter" into spanish for the class. which i couldnt do and got all flustered and tried to explain in spanish that it was the thing on the side of the road where rain goes. ahhaha. then right after this class was my recitation for the lecture and once again i went with alessandro, pablo, and the girls and we were put into another group and had to do this questionnaire together about a movie we watched in class.. the movie was in english with spanish subtitles.. success. anyways, i felt so happy by the end of these classes that i made it through the day when i began with such butterflies in my stomach. everyone was really understanding and helpful all day so im hoping all these kids will be new friends!! god knows i need them. the classes seem great, given the fact that i probably only understood about 25% of what was being said. however it was amazing how much my spanish seemed to improve after 5 hours of non stop native speaking spanish. it was pretty awesome. lets pray that ill pick it up quickly or else ill be that annoying american always asking for help haha... also: i would say that today i developed such a great respect for anyone who starts fresh in a new country without knowing the language. especially in the United States which is so closed off from the rest of the world compared to Europe. It takes a lot of guts and bravery I think and can get very overwhelming at times. I was almost dizzy with Spanish by the end of the day. So to anyone reading this, if ever you come across someone new to the country or new to your town who seems a bit lost, just take a second and help them out. even any bit of conversation really does go along way...

anywayssss things are looking goood!!!!! tomorrow i have Coloquial Spanish and then my general spanish class. HASTA LUEGOOOO

just a little post...

i was talking to Juanjo (the guy from spain) on facebook today and this is what he said:

"you shall look for a job for me in your village!"

hahah it made me laugh.. village???

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"

this weekend was amazing!! lots of good stories to tell but im off to bed!! updates later...

CLASS IN THE MORNING AHHHHH

vale vale vale

oh madrid :)

ive officially been here a week!!!!!!!!! today was the first day i think i felt like a was really settling in, the past week has just been a roller coaster and it seems honestly like years ago that i was lost with naomi in the paris airport. im figuring out the metro system and figuring out exactly where i live in respect to everything else and it feels good to feel familiar with the city. living here is such an experience like no other.. i dont feel like a tourist rushing through sights but im starting to feel just a little bit that i am part of Madrid. its sooo wonderfull being able to speak spanish all the time and i can already tell that i am understanding things much better. our group is becoming better friends and i think we are all starting to like get that we are here to stay... the past week of hours and hours of orientation in a little office was brutal but the past two days we have actually been able to see the city and i like what i see :) although it lacks that defining sight such as the eiffel tower in paris or the parthenon in athens, i think madrid is more about all the little things and finding what amazes you.

two nights ago a bunch of kids from my program and me and camila went out to a restuarant in la latina and then to a bar afterwards. the night ended with us singing karaoke at the top of our lungs with a group of old spanish professors hahahahaha it doesnt get better

yesterday me and my friends erika and crissy walked around the city for several hours just going wherever our hearts desired, we ended up finding the BESSTTTT cafe/bar in the whole world with all these cool posters of bands and places all over the world and when we walked in "The Girl from Ipanema" was playing on the radio. love!!! i got a kiwi smoothie :)

we spend lots of hours sitting and talking here and i love it.. we just go from cafe to cafe and drink coffee or eat a little pastry and just chat. Europe is a successssssss

last night me and my friend krystal went out with 4 german guys hahahaha! a kid i met in boulder kind of introduced me through facebook to one of the germans because he knew he was living in madrid so we met up last night for the first time!! we ended up pregaming at an apartment with 4 germans, a spanish girl, and an italian girl hahah whyyyyyy dont i do this in the US?!? all the kids more or less spoke english so we spent a few hours getting to know each other and ahhh it was marvelous. then they took us to this local spanish night club and we danced for hours and hours and hours to techno and left at like 5 in the morning to walk back to malasana. i wore heals last night which wwas a huge mistake because the 15 minute walk turned into 45 minutes of me starting and stopping again cause my feet hurt so bad hahaha but its okay cause i bought a chocolate donut on the way home.

today i headed to retiro park to go for a jog and of course i randomly ran into two girls from my program who had the same idea as me!!! we meandered around for a while then headed to a cafe where i ate a croissant and had a cup of coffee.. life is good.

im now back in the apartment listening to music with Cristina- ohh who ps let me borrow her clothes last night so i would look more like a Madrileña hahahah

Class starts on Mondayyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!! ahhhh

last night i went out with Camila and her three friends from Ireland for some drinks!! They are all studying law at Cambridge and University College of London. hahahahah- i was surrounded by wonderful company. actually im always surrounded by wonderful company- these kids in my program from Yale, Princeton, and UVA are awesome. like a complete 180 from my dubsteppers and snowboarders in Boulder. although i love boulder with all of my heart and soul, the kids there tend to value hanging out and adventuring more than studying and getting these amazing jobs and basically running our world. its nice to be around something new, yet also makes me miss my free spirits in colorado haha.. but no i love it.

i woke up two hours late today. the most important day of orientation hahhaha because the group took the 40 minute train ride to our campus to have a tour. my alarm didnt go off so i woke up to phone calls from the program director asking where i was... fail. hahaha so i ran to the metro, felt like a real person commuting cause you know i was one of those psychos that is running through the metro station, and i got to the office after everyone had left. sooooo my program director had to drive me to the campus outside of madrid and made me promise never to be late again. i was trying to explain to her that i wasn't drunk last night and it was only because i slept through my alarm and cristina had woken me up but i fell back asleep because i thought my alarm would wake me up and i was trying to say this all in spanish but i dont think i sounded very convincing so i think she just thought i got a little crazy the night before... but i had only had one beer. hahahaha. and i arrived late to the tour and everyone was laughing at me as a walked up- reinforces this image i have in the group as the crazy hippie girl from boulder hahahah. but anyways, it really wasnt that big of a deal and everything is fine now. the campus is smaller than boulder butttt all these students were on campus so i was excited to see all my potential friends!!!!! I really cant wait to start school and start meeting people!!!!!!!!! its going to be lots of funnn :)

Things I've noticed about Madrid:

1. The doors open on the left side.. Like if there are double doors the left one is the one that works.. i dont know its really weird and you dont really notice it until youve gotten stuck inside a building like 15 times. my hand automatically goes to the right door so yea...

2. cafe con leche!!!!! ITS DELICIOUS

3. there are all these little like mini supermarkets, kind of like CVS or walgreens that have like everything, but they are of course much smaller and everyone calls them "Chinos" because Asian people are the only ones that work there hahaha

4. Like in Greece, the light switches are on the outside of the room. for example to turn off the light inside my room i have to walk out to the hallway... its really odd

5. there aren't as many motorbikes as there were in Athens!!!! It's sooo depressing hahaha

6. Paying with euros is much more fun

7. men wear scarves all the time and it looks good. guys in the US don't ever wear scarves

8. "no pasa nada" is what everyone says all the time to everything all the time hahaha, it means like no problem or everything is okay.. i like it!!!

9. as my spanish gets better, my english gets worse.

yesterday i woke up at one in the afternoon to bright sunny skies out my window :) i got up and had a coffee then went and met Cristina my host at the little local bar called Casa Camacho down the street for a Botellín! we met up with her friend and had a lovely lunch in the house. we then lounged around and i went to go explore a bit with others from my program and see their houses. everyone seems to have nice places... but living in this barrio is whats up. i live close to two girls- krystal who goes to Yale but lives in cali and mandy who goes to school at BOULDERRR!! they are both great and last night the three of us went out to dinner and shared a bottle of vino at this little artsy cafe. success.

then krystal and i went out to the bars in Malasaña!!! although it was pretty quiet cause it was sunday we ended up meeting an italian guy, a mexican guy, and a peruvian girl!!! they were all really funny and nice so we were with them for a bit and exchanged numbers and all that so hopefully this will develop into a friendship!!! we will see :)

i couldnt really sleep at all last night (jet lag??) and also the fact that we have no heat in the house so i sleep with about 15 blankets and then i start getting claustrophobic in my bed so then i try to sleep without so many but then its cold hahaah, so i woke up early and took a shower which proved to be quite difficult and by the time i figured it out the water wasn't hot anymore so i took a FREEZING shower in my apartment with no heating in the middle of january. it was painful. the shower head is also one of those removable ones which is great fun and all if there was a shower curtain large enough to block the water haha, i just had to stand and make sure the water only went in one direction and didnt soak the house haha pero no pasa nada. i got dressed and met some girls from my program at the subway to head down to the CIEE office for another day of never ending lectures. i cant wait to be DONE with orientationnnnn, ugggg. we had a two hour break so me and krystal went back to Malasaña and found the most wonderful CREPERIE!! we felt like we were in france and we shared a sweet and savory crepe :).... almost as good as food breaks. but never as good. we then got maps of malasaña which will prove to be very handy because this seems to be the most confusing barrio in the world, the streets are not in a grid, they are just kind of like thrown down like pick up sticks and i have no idea where anything is or how to get anywhere, im gonna study my map every night!!! after crepes we went back for more and more lectures and now im here back at my house and cristina is making us dinner!!!!!!! smells good :) tomorrow we are going to Getafe to my campus to check it out!!

adventuressssss

PS!! forgot to mention that today at the restaurant we sat outside and at the table next to us was some really famous actress (?????) hahahhaha, i of course didnt know who she was bit Cristina said that she was all over the TV here in Spain- and its common to see celebs in Malasaña... successssssssssssss

bohemian counterculture life :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malasaña

ME GUSTA MALASANA, ME GUSTAS TUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!- Manu Chao.

i live in the best barrio in madridddd :) It's called Malasaña.

Its like the alternative, hippie, greenwich village type barrio and ahhh its just amazing. and my host mom... is a badass. She came and picked me up at the hotel where we had this big sort of ceremony type thing and we all got to introduce our hosts and it was really nice but when we were all done Cristina was like "all right lets bag this joint" basically this attitude, but said in spanish hahhaha, so we rolled out of there with her and her equally as badass friend. She is just this like awesome, loud, funny, not really hippie but just like.. alternative?; lets just say I came home earlier than she did tonight. She is a bit older (late 30s), but tons of funnnnn :) Not at all what I was expecting.. but much better!!!!! We only speak in Spanish, actually that is all I speak anywhere- with people on the program, the program directors, Cristina. TODOS. I am finding my personality in Spanish- very curious predicament really- to find your sense of humor in Spanish. Already I can see my accent getting much better. Anyways, after we dropped off my bags we went straight to a little bar right down the street from me where the people spill out into the streets with their drinks.. un mini botellón?? anyways all the people looked so cool and just ahh like not typical dressed to the T Europeans, more relaxed, more into like music and art. Ahhhh mis vecinos :) (neighbors). Then after a drink we went to a restaurant and drank and ate and chatted more and then took a little stroll around this lovely little part of Madrid. Right down the street is A SQUAT!!! so basically when a bunch of young vagabonds leave their house and take over an abandoned building.. its hilarious and painted with graffiti and yea ahhh..

anyways, I met up with a friend from high school tonight!!! The girl I went to Peru with hahahah- Camila!!! She lives literally like 5 minutes walking away from me. Really random.

Last night some Spanish students that kind of like help CIEE- my program, took four of us out last night for Sangriaaaaa.. so it was like 4 spaniards and 4 americans and yesss it was cool we went to a nice little pub and ahhh perfectooo. we have 15 kids on our program so its pretty close knit- we have gotten to know all of them and everyone is greatt!! very smart kids from princeton and yale.. and im like the random crazy in the group.. pero no pasa nada.

i dont think i have honestly slept for reals in the 4 days... so I'm going to sleep now.. I've been quite delusional these last few days!!!

MADRIDDDD

Seeing as I didn't have internet in France I couldn't post this at the time...

Thursday January 13th!!

Soooo currently sitting in the airport in PARIS, FRANCE!! yes indeed i made it! from san antonio to minneapolis then finally a killer flight into Paris. Right now its like 7am in Paris but 12:54am Texas time.. the sun still hasn’t rose yet either!! I was waiting for hours and hours to see France as we flew in but fail haha Paris is still sleeping. And I should be too. I had a fitful flight over the Atlantic. I sat next to some hottie french guy who spent his time reading the New York times and the Economist, we didn’t talk and I tried to sleep but the excitement has literally overpowered me and I couldn’t get my body to just relax and sleep. Also not by surprise I managed to get the fidgets, so I spent ten hours listening to the Enya playlist on my Ipod about 35 times and then just gave up and watched the on-flight movie- Eat Pray Love! Anyways, so we get into Paris and I am shuffled onto a shuttle bus and hauled off to the main terminal. The different languages and people are so exciting!!! A smile has yet to leave my face. This airport has got to be the most confusing place ever, and I’m pretty sure they were trying to hide my gate to Madrid from me. I walking down fifteen secret corridors, went to some underground lair, entered back up into a main terminal where people were waiting to pick up their friends so I thought I had actually left the airport, then I went through some security police, they stamped my passport (success), I went down a mile long moving walkway, where I then came to a security check point where the guy started speaking to me in french and I just giggled and said bonjour bonjour when finally i realized he was trying to tell me to get it moving through security so then i stripped down as I received death glares from the French security who were pissed that I had a water bottle, everyone was speaking french, I thought I lost my boarding pass, then I found it, then the lady made me chug the gallon of water as they all watched and then I was free to go!! I tried to use a pay phone to call my program in Madrid and tell them I would be late but all the directions were in French so I just you know.. gave up. So then I walked another five miles following a little sign that said “F” down to this little room painted neon orange and im pretty sure im in the right place. I’m pretty sure all these people were convinced by my new leather jacket that I was European so haha Successss!!! anyways now im like mildly delusional, I dont think I have really slept for the past 3 days and I want to speak spanish and why hasn’t the sun come up yet?!?!?

anywaysssss, I will be boarding in the next hour or so!!!!!!!

loving these adventures.

A LITTLE LATER: now I am sitting on the airplane ready to go to SPAIN! the sun is up!! and I have a new friend :) Her name is Naomi and I met here in the terminal. She is this amazing French Canadian girl and she is studying at my same university in Madriddd!!!! She has a lovely french accent, has volunteered at an orphanage in India, and plans to go to Israel after Spain!! successs for friendsss. we are planning on getting a taxi together into the city! Okay time to put this laptop away and I have high hopes of seeing the eiffel tower once I take off. These rain clouds don’t look too nice though

Soooo Naomi and I ended up getting on a plane but after about 30 minutes waiting for it to take off they decided that Madrid was too foggy to fly into so we had to get off the plane and go back to the terminal, then we had to get reissued a boarding pass and had to wait another hour for another plane!!! Thank god for Naomi, she was literally totting me around and translating for me while I followed half asleep. In the terminal we had this wonderful multicultural moment where me, Naomi, a French woman, a couple from Peru, and a woman from Brasil were all talking in Enlgish, French, Spanish, and Portuguese and translating for each other and ahhh it was just awesome... ANDDDDDD I got mistaken for a Brazilian!!! SUCCCESSSSS. for reals. anyways, the flight to Madrid was fine, I fell asleep right away, didn't see the Eiffel Tower, but woke up in time to see the mountains coming into MADRID. Naomi and I got all our bags and then went to find a taxi. I navigated this all with my SPANISH!!! it was so exciting, then we got to Madrid and I was dropped off at my hotel. In the room I called the program director and a man named Paco came and retrieved me and took me to the orientation which I was 5 hours late for. Heard a bunch of stuff then went out to dinner with all the kids in our program for TAPAS and ate with some spanish students that had come to talk to us. It was lovelyyyyy but I am literally like falling out of my chair with tiredness so after dinner I'm back to the hotel!!!!!!!!! GOING TO SLEEP

Ready to see MADRID tomorrow with bright eyes and a sharper mind. love love love this all...

chauuuuu

in MADRID!!!!! and its perfect. lots of adventures today with french airports and canadians, ill write more later im off somewhere with people i have yet to meet!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.. so I am going to Spain tomorrow!!!!! Spain :)

It feels like yesterday I was just coming back from Greece.. that dream. I can honestly say that I have thought about that adventure every single day for the past year and a half and the memories haven't faded. For a long while it was tough- missing the friends and the feelings and the fun. But after telling the stories too many times and trying to convey how magical the trip really was, time has turned the Greece trip into a beautiful memory in my heart that will never be forgotten or repeated :)

After Greece I was back in BOULDER for Sophomore Year. Jess and I lived together again in the dorms (we had a job with a Residential Academic Program blahhh blahh we weren't RA's). A combination of post-trip depression and the loss of a good friend turned the year into a complicated growing experience that I am certainly glad to be done with, but thankful for the lessons it taught me. And hey it wasn't all bad- I was a ski bum AND went skydiving for the first time!!! SUCCESSSSS :) The year ended with me coming back to San Antonio in need of some serious home time. I got a job at a Child Center at the massive health club/fitness center/gym whatever thing by our house and it was awesomee and so fun and so great being around kids and babies all the time. I spent my summer leading dodgeball games and wiping kids noses and trying unsuccessfully to be a disciplinarian. The Texas sun and the silliness at the Child Center and of course my family healed me up nice and good sooooo I went to Boulder for my Junior year a new, happier Chelsea ready for rocky mountain adventures once again! And so it was. These past few months I lived in an old frat house right in the center of Boulder with 25 other of the craziest, most hilarious girls I have ever met. Living in that house was wild. I roomed with a girl on my field hockey team named Maddie who never stopped adventuring and fiesta-ing and living the wonderful Boulder life!! We had such a good time this semester. I made the greatest of friends in the house and ahhh it was just blissful. Australians, slip n slides, dubstep, 2000 jello shots. yup. boulder. i will miss your energy.

SOOOOOOOO now I am here laying in my bed in San Antonio, Texas waiting for this next new chapter to beginnn!!!! I've been working all break at the Child Center and doing a whole bunch of nothing (besides swing dancing with the grandma sandy and watching lots of lord of the rings). I fly tomorrow from San Antonio to Minneapolis to Paris and finally to Madrid. Thanks to all that inclement weather on the east coast my flights got cancelled this morning and I had a lovely few hours on hold with Delta trying to get it all sorted out. But it diddd! So I'm going to MADRIDDDD!! MADRID. the capital of Spain and all things Spanish. I've heard its like the NYC of Spain?? This could be good news for me since new york has always been my favorite place since I was in the womb. Anyways, I'll be on a program with 15 other kids from all over the United States, living in a homestay, and going to a spanish university called the Universidad Carlos 3 de Madrid. Successs. I have no word of who I will be living with yet so that will be interesting indeed. Ill be speaking lots of spanish and having lots of fun.. and studying lots as well!!! SCHOOOL :) Many of my friends from CU are studying abroad this semester, but none in Madrid.. soooo it will be my lovely little solo adventure... until I make some friends. Then after Spain I plan to do some traveling.. to where I do not know. Maybe Austria, Hungary, Croatia?? Maybe to Greece to visit some friends I met in a dream one time?? Maybe anything! And I'd love to be in Spain this summer for the Running of the Bulls!!!! I've been saving and saving since the day I returned from Greece so we will see how the cash holds up. I won't be eating for the next six months lets just say that.

SOOOOOOOOOOOO, i hope this gives all of you a brief insight into my life and whats been happening since my last time in Europa. My Spanish adventure begins...

VALIENTE!!!

"Allons! whoever you are come travel with me!
Traveling with me you find what never tires.

The earth never tires,
The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude
and incomprehensible at first,
Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop'd,
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can
tell."

-Song of the Open Road