bastante bien

So today I was finally able to go to IKEA and it was very much worth the wait. I was able to get some personal touches to make my room feel more homey which is a great feeling J

Last night I went to my first intercambio at O’Reilleys (an Irish bar in the city center—near Sol). An intercambio is where people from lots of different countries get together and practice new languages. It was a really cool experience. I was talking to a couple from Spain that wanted to practice their English and they were asking how I was adjusting to Spain and I told them the whole no-dryer thing is definitely going to take some time to get used to. (In case you aren’t aware, people in Spain don’t really use dryers, they just dry their clothes on a clothesline). Anyways, he explained that I must remember that Spain is just 30 years and one generation past being a 3^rd world country, so the fact that they don’t use dryers should be of no surprise. For those that don’t know, Spain had a dictator until about 1975. I just thought that was something good to keep in mind when I am complaining about putting my clothes out for everyone to see.

In addition to my daily happenings, today I decided I wanted to cover a couple things on here that have been on my mind:

First, when people arrive in a new city it is very normal to be lost, but Madrid takes being lost to a whole new level because they do not have street signs. Let me repeat that, they do not have street signs; at least not what an American would consider a street sign. Therefore, nobody knows where anything is and when you stop and ask a Spaniard where someplace is they say “es muy leijos” (it is very far) which usually means they have no idea where it is!! One guy told us a plaza was 40 minutes away when it was right around the corner. The point of the story is, embrace being lost when in Madrid.

Second: two days in a row I talked freely about someone with one of my roommates on the metro, and nobody else on the metro had any idea what I was saying. I know it sounds bad, but it is pretty liberating to know you can freely comment about people’s clothes or relationship statuses and them be none of the wiser.

Favorite quote of the day: “Danielle, I think he is talking about shitting”- Erica

(Background: at the intercambio last night Erica was talking with a Spaniard about sayings and he was trying to say that there is a Spanish phrase that people use when they are mad at their bosses and he kept squatting and making a grunting face but we had no idea what he was saying and after a while we figured out that the saying is “I want to shit on my boss”, but we didn’t get it for probably 5 minutes and after he squatted and grunted probably 15 times…great times!)