La Vida Esta Loca

The first full week of my Spanish adventure has come and gone- and honestly I'm lucky to be alive.
Day one, I was mugged coming home at night on the Metro and now I am phoneless. The Spaniards don't appreciate an American girl crying her eyes out on the train for future reference to anyone traveling to Madrid in the near future. Day five, I was mugged again at the night club Kapital and lost all the euro I had on me. People are telling me it's my purse- I think I'm just naive and need to get my shit together.

Besides losing all my possessions, I think the people running this dorm I am in are trying to kill us. We have no hot water and no heat and we get a death glare at every corner. And not to be dramatic, but the food they serve of for meals is probably sub par to cat food. There's a possibility they may try to poison it at some point. "Toni" is the man working here and I literally think he is running a drug cartel in the basement. So this weekend we are escaping this orphanage we live in to move to a homestay. Unfortunately, our teacher already told the people here, so now they really do have reason to hate us.

                                                Our beautiful residencia- welcome to hell. 

All that aside, the vida here truly is loca. I have never ben so sleep deprived in my life. Over the past two nights I have had 5 hours of sleep total. The night life here is not like anything I have ever experienced. You cannot get to a club before midnight and because the trains don't run between 1:30 and 5:30, you are stuck there till 6 unless you want to break the bank and take a cab.

    Our after school activity of going to Dulce King for candy has made us the         

most loyal customers. Hopefully our discount starts soon.

To move on to classier and more cultural conversation....We have had an intensive spanish language class all this week to prepare us for the classes we are about to start. I am taking four classes in spanish and an econ class in english. After sitting through a history and an art class though, it really doesn't seem too bad in terms of understanding the language in a classroom context.

Today my friends and I are going to tour Chueca, a hip little neighborhood of Madrid known for it's gay community. I actually went there two days ago to do research for a project I am doing on it and it reminded me of the village in NYC. Everything is organic and earthy and there are gay pride flags everywhere. I love it. Tomorrow we are all going for churros as a class activity and then touring the markets. I can't think of a better way to spend a Sunday.

                               El Tigre is a small bar in Chueca where you can get a drink and free  
                                tapas for 6 euro. The owner's name is Juan; we're friends now. 

Everything here is so beautiful. Running through the park yesterday under the willow trees and around the little ponds, I realized how lucky I am to be here this semester and how I must take advantage of every opportunity. I can already see how the months are going to fly by and soon I will be having to tear myself away from this place. Although I have already managed to acquire a 24 year old novio named Ricardo. So perhaps I will marry him and stay. Until next time, keep me in mind.

                                          Manos Al Aire, Nelly Furtado