El Metro

Today was a very eventful day! I am going to give a brief recap and hopefully add pictures soon to show all of the things we have done so far. I am adding them to facebook right now for those who have that. We started with a wonderful breakfast. We actually ate conflakes. However the milk was room temperature. We had been warned this before so once I was mentally prepared, I was fine. Then, our Madre gave us hot milk and Nescafé. It is very similar to hot coco powder, only coffee. With that and a little sugar, it was phenomenal! I loved it! I am wondering if they have it in the states because it is made by Nestle. Next, Erin and I conquered the Metro. Everyone says it is very similar to the subway in New York. I felt very independent and citified taking the Metro to school. It is very quiet and people to not make eye contact. You also have to be careful that you keep your belongings in front of you and held close, as it is a hot spot for pick pockets. We then went to one of the locations of our school here (we only got a little lost). We took a placement test and had a small orientation and then had a bit of free time. The school is very near El Retiro. This is a huge park in Madrid. On Sundays it is packed, as nobody is working. There were vendors selling food, jewelry, etc, as well as musicians and artists everywhere. There were also two small lakes and one of them had row boats in it that you could use! My favorite thing I saw, however, was on one section, there were benches with stationary bike pedals in front of them. You could sit on a bench and exercise while you chat! The Spanish would do that. What a brilliant idea. After a long walk through park, admiring the fountains and monuments, wishing we could jump in the lakes because it was very hot today, we headed back for lunch. This was probably my favorite meal so far. Our Madre made breaded fried chicken. However, it was very thin and the breading was like bread crumbs. Then we had vegetable soup. Everything was so good. After lunch we headed back downtown for a bus tour of Madrid. If you will remember in my last post I mentioned that Madrid did not have skycrapers like other cities. Lies, I just had not realized how large the city actually is. There is definitely a modern part that resembles what comes to mind with a big city for me. However, I hold my ground that it is very different from most cities in the United States and many other countries. The bus tour was great, as we were able to see many places all over the city, which will help us know where we want to explore more. We saw many plazas, parks, and museums, as well as many other things. After the bus tour we went to a Baptist church service in Madrid. This was so neat. However, it is very difficult to undestand the sermon. If you zone out for even a second you're a goner. However, I did take a way the fact that we are not alone, our church family is like a large family with many brothers and sisters that is there to support us. What was really neat was that I knew many of the songs they sang. One was "Abre los ojos de me corazón" or "Open the Eyes of My Heart" as well as the hymn "This is my story, this is my song" (I always here my grandma's voice in hymns from our church in New York). After the service we talked with the lady in charge of the young adult program and she invited us to their meetings on Saturdays and she and some of the boys came with us (apparently they can only get boys to come to the meetings). After the service we then went to Sol. This is the "heart" of Madrid. I was trying to compare it to something in my mind and when someone said New Orleans on a bigger scale, that was exactly what I was looking for. There were many different kinds of people, colors, and foods. There were so many people, but it was beautiful and there is a lot of history there. For dinner, we ate "tortillas". I loved it! It was like a fried tomato and some other things. You place it in the middle and everyone just digs in with their forks! Two of our friends from the church ate at our table and we spoke Spanish the whole time. It was such a great experience, as many people did not have this opportunity. I was very thankful, as I was frustrated earlier that I felt I had spoke too much English. I came here to speak SPANISH I kept thinking to myself when groups were talking. Still, one boy, Nihin, told us about another meeting on Tuesday at the church that I think a few of us are going to go to, as well as a date that his band is playing at another church. He also gave us the number of one of his friends that is a girl living in Barcelona if we end up going their on our free weekend. We had such a great time and I know a lot of us are going to try to meet up with them again while we are here. This is exactly what I wanted. Spanish friends to talk with and show me around. There is so much to do and see. We keep reminding ourselves that we do have 5 weeks to soak it all in. Finally, we decided to call it a night and head back on the Metro. The only tricky thing is that obviously you don't want to ride by yourself at night, and if you and your roommate want to do different things it's very difficult. Tonight, for instance, my roommate wanted to stay out later. Thankfully some sweet girls rode with me to my stop and walked me home so I would not be alone. Still, right now we only have one set of keys (she is going to give us another one once the other girls leave). So I have been up longer than I really wanted to tonight, but it's ok! We did also meet her daughter, Carmen today for a little bit! She is very nice and told us some place to buy cheap clothes. We also met the other two American girls briefly. Still, what I am most excited about now is the possibility of going to see the opera Carmen! They are trying to get a group together to go and I cannot WAIT! That is all for now, I will try to post pictures soon!