Some Ups and Downs

Oooh another week has passed! Time is flying by here. We've been here 3 weeks now and it already feels like forever! This is the last week of Spanish classes. Tomorrow we have our exam in gramatica, and then im not sure what we really do until Friday when classes end. This also means 1 week until we move into our apartment and 1 week until our real classes start yipeeee :)

This last few days I've had some ups and downs. Saturday was an amazing day! I woke up early and took a bus to Madrid, arriving mid day. There I met Javier, my hermano costarricense! I spent the whole day in Madrid with him: we met up in Puerta del Sol (center point), then after an overwhelming quick trip to the 5 floors of Cortes Ingles (the huge department store here) we got lunch and figured out a game plan for the day. After lunch we headed over to the Bernabeu stadium, home to the team Real Madrid. Although, Javier is really a Barcelona fan (and I couldn't really care less) it was fun touring the WHOLE stadium: the top, middle, and field, museum inside the stadium, locker rooms etc. So maybe I will have to become more of futbol fan here seeing as it is the number one sport!

We headed back towards the center after exploring the futbol city, and stopped in a funky area of Madrid I had read about having good shopping. Ofcourse I always manage to get lost somehow but after wondering the streets looking for open stores (it was still siesta, I guess) and finding a few we finally decided to head back towards the center for food. On the way back however, we found the best shopping street so it took a little longer than imagined but we found some great stuff at rebajas prices! And I must say, Javier was the best shopping companion I could have had :)

I finally got back to Salamanca that night and grabbed a taxi home to find Emily getting ready to go out. We went out for a little while and met up with our Swedish friend but still feeling groggy from my nap on the bus I decided to go home early. And of course the next day I wake up with a terrible cold... and for the last few days its just been getting worse. Not to mention the temperature has dropped below freezing in the last few days and it's said to even snow later this week! I've been taking extra long siestas and drinking lots of Oj so hopefully I'll get better soon.

I have my first intercambio tonight. That's where you find someone looking to practice the language you know (english) and that speaks the language you want to learn (spanish) and you get together at a cafe or somewhere and sort of tutor/practice with each other. I'll have to lay off my nyquil until after so I won't be dozing off. Hopefully he can help me study for my exam tomorrow though...