Madrid, Te Amo!

Yikes. I really suck at this whole updating my blog thing. Rather than make this massive, this will be about my first two weeks in Madrid. Let's begin!

Thursday 5:30PM August 28th, I met my host family. Obviously you can imagine the range of emotions going through my head. Will they like me? Can they speak some English? Are they awesome? Do they only speak Spanish? What did I just get myself into?! Well.... showtime! I was introduced to Veronica and Alfonso and it was interesting. They didn't speak any English to me, but they did to my roommate. (Yes, I am basically the translator between them, but it's okay we are all teaching each other.)  We got to their apartment and I instantly died. The view was beautiful and it was perfect. It felt like home from the start. The apartment is spacious, our bathroom is huge and our room is a pretty big size. It's located in the middle of everything, so we can either take the metro which is super easy or walk. They are super sweet and gave us all the details, showed us where we put our picture on the wall once we leave here and they call us their "niños" because they don't have kids. (Insert AWE here). They know just about everything about anything where we want to go and tell us how to get there. Naturally, we try to listen and we get lost. A 7 minute walk home once from this club took an hour. This wasn't just a one time thing either. HA.

The view from our apartment

Did I mention our room is next to the kitchen? I mean, hello Junior 30. Just kidding, the Junior 30 will be from all the food they feed us.... no joke. They look at you like a deer in headlights if you don't finish all the food or say you aren't that hungry. The food however is amazing here. I don't just mean restaurants, I mean our host mom is an amazing cook. They will make a giant plate of something, they both take an 1/8 and leave the rest for my roommate and I. Not to mention they make 1,000 side plates so if you are still hungry after that, I'm confused. Hence why I joined a gym. Not trying to come back and enter into a fast food eating competition. We have ate so many different types of food. My favorite if you couldn't tell by last post is CROQUETAS. I will learn how to make this and you will all fall in love. I have to say the weirdest is calamari in it's own ink. But I mean if you get passed the fact that it's not fried and you can see its legs dangling on your fork, you'll be just fine! Just close your eyes and try to ignore the squishy-ness when you chew, that's what I did...  sort of. They also love rabbit. I'll be sure to let you all know how that is. But they do serve wine with every meal here. It's every underage kids dream. Well that and the drinking age is 18 here. But we generally have a new bottle of wine to start dinner and it's gone by the end of dinner. Not complaining, it's some good vino.

Calamari in it's own ink. Appetizing right?

You would think being in the fashion capital of the world it would be easy to find clothes here right? No. Europeans are highly fashionable, don't get me wrong but their clothes are very different. I have tried four malls and couldn't find any t-shirts because European's like loose fitting necks rather than tight ones in America. Yes loose fit necks are different than V-necks which they have here. They also like skinny jeans and short shorts so that's new. No I will not try that. I fell in love with this store called Pull and Bear and guess what it's all loose fit necks, but don't worry their winter stuff isn't! It's wicked cheap too and I mean I am a poor college student so like nice clothes for cheap prices? Hey now. They dress nice even going to the gym. Really? The gym. I look like a bum off the streets at the gym and they are wearing some nice clothes to sweat in. Speaking of the gym, yeah... we aren't in America anymore. Europeans are very comfortable with their bodies and themselves. By that I mean, naked men and women in the locker rooms everywhere. Basically you are at the beaches here but a gym. The showers only have walls but NO DOORS so it's like a free for all and the towels are so small that they cover nothing, and I MEAN NOTHING. Basically it's a strip club for free but of all the same sex. That's just how comfortable they are here though. It's definitely a culture shock.

School. Yes I am here for school. The building is pretty cool. Nothing crazy and it's 5 minutes from my house. Can't complain. I like my classes and the people in them. I have a feeling this will be a great semester academically so I'm looking forward to learning a lot. The teachers are super nice as well and extremely passionate about the subjects they offer. Our school offers a lot as far as trips, cooking classes, meeting other europeans and even a card that allows us to take advantage on trips. Hello Paris, London, Italy, Amsterdam, Oktoberfest and Denmark. See you all within the next few months! May throw another in there because when will I ever get to do this again? Never.

Fishbowl... of heaven

THE NIGHTLIFE. Wow. Where do I begin. The nightlife here is insane. Never seen anything like it. I know every country has their own nightlife but I'm sorry you cannot top Madrid or Spain in general. The clubs are insane, the music is generally good (and American, go figure) and the drinks are amazing. Pretty sure Europeans just sing American songs without knowing what the lyrics mean, it's quite funny actually. But hey, that's like me with Spanish except I make up the words. They usually offer deals to either get in the club or get x amount of drinks at the clubs. The bars are generally cheap, well at least for shots but I mean what more do you need if you're on a budget. Plus there are so many Europeans and I don't just mean Spaniards at the clubs, that it's basically an international project X depending upon where you go. This is where Europeans dress to impress and just kill it. Beautiful people everywhere and yeah they can dance. Then you find us Americans in a herd and you're like oh... they are American. They'll spot you in a second like the ugly duckling. Especially since Americans are extremely loud and obviously we dress different. Plus we speak English so yeah that's a big give away.

Kapital 1 : Friends 0

My first two weeks here have been amazing. Obviously I've been here longer than that I'm just splitting this up. Can't put too much of a good thing in one blog post! I can get used to this life here. It's amazing, enjoyable and fun all at once. I may get fat from the food (just kidding I will not let that happen) but at least I'll have some European fashion to come back to the states with. And who knows maybe a European girlfriend or some form of royalty? Hey, a kid can dream can't he!

Selfie with the Almudena Cathedral anyone?

HASTA LUEGO.