Martes en Madrid

Mi segundo dia de clases aqui en Madrid. Ayer [lunes] fue mi primer dia. I had to be at the school by 9 AM in order to take a placement exam. Surprise surprise, they told me I had excellent speaking abilities, but my writing was horendous (teehee). So, I was placed in advanced/intermediate grammar and conversation. My classes are everyday por la tarde. Desde las 15:30-17:00 y las 17:30-19:00 (for those of you who don't know how to use military time that's 3:30-5:00 and 5:30-7:00...). Tengo las mananas libres para hacer cualquier cosa. However, yesterday was the gloomiest day ever. No sun, actually kind of cold, and rainy. So, after my placement exam I had about 5 hours free. I met some new people who were from America and one guy from Portugal. We walked around the Retiro (again) went into a cafe and had some cafe con leche y un chocolate. We also had lunch and it wasn't so bad. Then the classes started. My teachers are....interesting to say the least. They are pretty nice and somewhat amusing and very SPANISH. They like to refer to me as Cubanita for some reason.

Anyway, classes went by and ended, and then we went off to something the school held at a bar called "La Copa de Bienvenido". We went to a near by bar where everyone could have one free glass of either cerveza, vino, o sangria. I, por supuesto, went for the sangria. It was wooooooooonderful. We were having some trouble mingling with the other students since the majority all come from the same university (BC) and are all already friends. However, our Portugese pal decided to ask the Australian guy who was standing near us how to say "platypus" in Spanish....that didn't go very well. We eventually met some other people, two who go to UF and went to Columbus (seriously why do I always find someone from Miami?!) Anyway, we mingled and it was fun.

Tema and I then decided to go find some food. We found a nice little tapas place and ate foodz. Yum. Since we're still jetlagged, we headed home around 10 or 11 and passed out (again). But we slept well and headed out on another adventure before classes started. We found this tiny tiny church where Goya was buried. You would never think it was anything of importance; its just this tiny building on the outskirts of the city. But it was awesome. The whole interior was painted by Goya, and his tomb was right in the middle. Sadly we couldn't take any pictures so I can't show you guys the awesome-ness of this Goya church. We wandered about trying to find our way to this giant cathedral. I forget the name just now....So we're walking through this park and up a hill and we finally find it! (or so we think) So we pay our entrance fee and enter, only then do I realize that we've just entered the crypt of the cathedral. Yeah, a bunch of tombs. Sounds creepy right? Well, it wasn't. It was beautiful! Some of those rich people have way awesome tombs. I wish I could have one as nice as those people. Done with the deceased we finally make it to the actual cathedral. It was huge and beautiful. It wasn't much like the traditional churches, it had some pretty modern-esque ceilings and stain glass windows. You'll have to look at my pictures to see what I mean. We spent quite of bit of time there. Afterward we had lunch by the Palacio Real, where Tema proceeded to feed a little bird that ended up in a flock of birds by the end of the meal.

Now I'm sitting in between classes updating my blog. We were discussing festivals and customs of Spain and each of our places, only to realize that my family does a lot of things that the Spanish do (proof that way back in my family tree I am Spanish :P)

No tengo mas que escribir por ahora. Te veo manana, vale?