Friday night, our brother Raul came home. He doesn't live with us though. He had been in Tenerife, he works in retail in airports and I think he is moving to Tenerife to do something in the airport there? But anyways, I wanted to meet him so I didn't go out or anything and he got here at around 11. He was cool, and mamá and I talked to him for a little while before we went to bed. Then my mom had sent me a DVD with some shows on it like Friends and American Idol so I watched a little bit of that before I went to sleep. Saturday, Raul left but our other brother, Oscar, came over. He has a 2 ½ year old son that rivals Christopher in cutest little kid ever. Ok maybe he is the cutest little Spanish kid ever, since obviously Chris is number one. But we played with him for awhile, like building his train tracks and some stuffed animals and hiding and stuff and it was fun. I haven’t had playtime in awhile, so I thoroughly enjoyed it, haha. It really made me miss my brother though. Then on Saturday afternoon, Monica called me and a bunch of us, I think about 10, went to see a movie. We went to Madrid and saw Memoirs of a Geisha in English (since it was in the original language) but with subtitles in Spanish. I was really glad that it was in both English and Spanish so that I could understand it, partly because sometimes it was hard to hear or understand what the characters were saying (especially with Japanese accents) but with the subtitles I got everything they said. Plus it was good to practice. The movie ended up being 2 ½ hours, really long, but that’s ok. We came back from Madrid and ended up getting home around 11 or so, since it takes about an hour and a half to get back to Alcalá from Madrid. I took the bus home with Carolyn, one of the grad students who lives in the apartment building right next to us. After I got home, I ate dinner and talked to mamá for a little while. Then Oscar, mamá and I were watching Legends of the Fall with Brad Pitt on tv but I think we all fell asleep. I watched a little bit more of American Idol though before I went to bed. On Sunday, Nicole, Monica, Juanito and I went into Madrid to go to El Prado and La Reina Sofia, two famous art museums. They are both free on Sundays, so we didn’t have to pay for anything all day. In the Prado, the main things are works by Goya, Velazquez, and el Greco, and in the Reina Sofia there are modern works, like Picasso (such as Guerníca, the most famous Spanish Civil War painting), Miró, and Dalí. I liked the Reina Sofia better, but half the things in there I probably could have done myself (ie Miró’s painting with like 5 dots on it, and that was it). But anyways, then we walked around a little bit, we tried to go to this one café to try clara con limón, a type of beer, but they didn’t have it so we left. We came back to Alcalá, and an intercambio had called Monica so Juanito, Monica and I met her. Her name is Araceli, she is 32 and has a 2 year old son. She was really nice though and we had a good time talking to her. She said she would take us into Madrid and show us stuff since she is from Madrid. We talked to her for almost 2 hours, we felt kinda bad though because we mainly talked in Spanish and you are supposed to talk half in Spanish and half in English so both can practice. Then came home, did homework, ate dinner, etc., nothing too exciting. Yesterday we just had grammar and then we came home, and in the afternoon Nicole and I went to the post office. We had to mail a couple postcards and needed to get some stamps. When we were there, she didn’t know that you have to put the country on the postcard (aka USA), so the guy kinda laughed at her and it was kinda just like, DUH!. Then we went to Champion on the way home to get a couple of things. She wants to dye her hair purple, so we got some hair dye and we are going to do that when we get to Italy this weekend. Should be interesting, haha. Then today we just went to school and it was a long day, had to get up early. Beatriz is teaching our conversation class since Susana had her operation today. On Wednesday night I think she fell at her house and tore her Achille’s tendon-OUCH. So she wasn’t there on Thursday and she has to be at home for a long time. I feel really bad for her. So now we have Beatriz for 3 hours which hopefully won’t be too bad. She is nice but sometimes she can just be a little bit boring. Then Raul came and ate lunch with us again before he left to go to Bilbao. He said that all of the sun and fairly warm (by that I mean 50’s ish) weather is pretty rare for this time of year.
Anyways, we’re getting ready to go to ITALY and the OLYMPICS this weekend and I am so excited!!! I can’t wait to see Jen and it is going to be a blast! We are going to see the USA women’s hockey team play Switzerland! I can’t believe we were leaving for Spain a month ago today, so hard to believe.
IF YOU WANT ME TO BRING YOU BACK ANYTHING FROM ITALY OR THE OLYMPICS EMAIL ME BY THURSDAY AND LET ME KNOW!
