Miércoles 25 octubre 2006

Wednesday I had my first cooking class and it was AWESOME! We learned how to make gazpacho (with these great little fried balls of the extra stuff that you put in like crackers), paella, and tarta de Santiago. Four people help the people cook the food while the rest of the group looks on, and then everyone eats the deliciousness. It was really, really wonderful. If anyone would like the recipes, I’m planning to translate them (if I can) and I can send them to you if you request them via comments.

Viernes 27 octubre 2006
So I mentioned in the entry where I got my haircut that I’ve lost a lot of weight (and it seems to continue to fall away from me). This meant that basically none of my pants continue to fit me (they’re pretty much all at least a size too big). I’ve been putting off buying new pants because even though I know I need them, I really just wanted to keep my old pants because I really like them. But Friday it got a little too ridiculous. I can pull off pretty much all of my old pants without undoing them at all and even my belt was in need of two new holes. So I went pants-shopping. It was traumatizing. First of all, I don’t like most of the Spanish styles of pants (because a lot of them are pre-distressed/worn and the styles just aren’t what I would normally pick). I also had to try on like eight million pairs just to figure out what size I am now (turns out I’m about a six). One of the stores I went to had different sizes for jeans and normal pants so that even further complicated things. After 2.5 hours of looking, I’d successfully found two pairs of pants that I liked and that fit me well. That means I have 3 pairs of pants that I can actually wear (I still had one pair that kind of fits because they were a little small when I came).

Sabado 28 octubre 2006
Saturday, Julia Rose Kimball (sorry, I felt like using her entire name) came to visit me from Paris. She was on vacation at the time and traveling around a lot. She arrived early Saturday morning and we began our tour of the city. We started off by visiting the Parque de Buen Retiro, which I’ve mentioned in earlier entries. The weather was unbelievably nice so the walk through the park was great. After that, we went to the Museo del Prado. I’d already seen it but Julia had been reading about some of the artists for her art history class in Paris and was excited to see them in real life. After that, we went to Sol to eat and walk around a little bit. From Sol, we did the big walk over to the Plaza Mayor and the Palace before going back and napping for a while (we’d had to wake up early and she’d been on a train all night). That night, we went out with a couple of my friends to a bar/club that’s like a block from my house. It was pretty fun, but we didn’t last all night like we planned to.

Domingo 29 octubre 2006
It was probably for the best that we didn’t make it until the morning because we woke up early to go to the Rastro instead. This experience was much more positive (and I took pictures). Afterwards, we hightailed it over to the Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida, a beautiful little church with some of the most impressive frescos I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Seriously, they were amazing. I snuck some illegal photos (I do that a lot, don’t I) to share with you guys, which I’ll put in the space next to Friday because they’ll fit there. Seriously though, amazing. (Don’t worry family; you’re definitely visiting there when you come.) After that, we went to lunch at this great little restaurant right next door to the church that had old fashioned dining and delicious food. It’s pretty much all chicken and salad with hard apple cider, but it was wonderful. You get a whole chicken, a big thing of salad, a bottle of cider, and two things of break for about 14 euro (if I remember correctly) and the atmosphere was great. I’m definitely planning to go back at some point with people. After that, we walked back to the main part of town and I showed Julia the other approach to the Palace, the exterior of Plaza Mayor (interesting because the houses are wider at the bottom than the top to support the weight of the plaza), and all of that. We chilled in Plaza Mayor for a while before we went to have some chocolate con churros for snack. We went to a place that was wonderfully typical, but the food was so filling it made me a little sick so we went home to sleep it off until it was dinner time.

Lunes 30 octubre de 2006
Monday, I unfortunately had class and was forced to abandon Julia to her own devices. After my classes were over, we met up to go to the Reina Sofia (which I’ve mentioned before). I stayed with her for a very short period of time before I had to go to my art class, where I finally finished my second drawing. I don’t think it’s quite as impressive as my first, but judge for yourselves. (Drawing picture coming soon, sorry for the delay).

Martes 31 octubre de 2006
Tuesday was Halloween. Now, the Spanish don’t celebrate Halloween like we Americans do, but they did ok. They all seemed like they had seen the same bad teen movie about the festivities and got their ideas for costumes from there. The two most popular were definitely Devil and Vampire, and you often saw groups of people dressed as the same thing. I went as a hippie (because I had the clothes) and had a great time. I made my own flower crown out of real daisies in Plaza Mayor while talking to these two wonderful old Spanish women. I gave away my remaining flowers to children I saw walking around. For the night part, I finally made the trip to El Kapital-the huge, multi-story dance club in Madrid. There was a cheesy but kind of fun haunted house and lots of dancing. Eventually, I gave up and went home to bed, but not before having a great time with my friends. We gave the night bus a shot and everything worked out ok.