Eres Italiana?

Ok, I realize I am totally behind so I'm going to break up the past few days into 3 blogs so as not to confuse myself or overwhelm anyone. I've been so busy and needing sleep that I've sacrificed my blogging. Ok, so I rested up the other night and felt SO much better the next morning. Thursday in grammar class we wrote a little story for a comic. It was really sad because it showed people falling in love and getting married but then everything going wrong. Ours was very dramatic, haha. We were working on past tenses. However, I learned a new word that I love "un flechazo" this means "love at first sight." Someone asked what the word for fall in love was and of course I spit it right out. I jokingly said that I knew all the words about love. My teacher thought that was funny. Then in culture we we reviewed the provinces. I was supposed to know all 50. I knew we were not going to have a test, but still I was nervous about we were going to show our knowledge and I did not want to make a bad impression so I had tried to study a lot of them the night before. It turned out that she drew a large map of the provinces on the board and went around and we each had to go up and and she would tell us one that we had to write in. Still we did it together as a class. She really just wanted us to have a general idea where things are when she talks about them. I definitely felt more prepared than a lot of the class so that made me feel better/dumb that I had spent so much time on it. Oh well, I like learning new things. Anyways, then we started talking about "jovenes" or young people, but we didn't get very far, so more on that in the next blog. We did, however, try to explain to her the "Samford Bubble." That was funny. Then, after class, I went to the park with some girls and ate lunch. It was so beautiful! Lunch was a ham and cheese sandwich, an apple, and then the only thing I have not liked at all here. It is some kind of bologna w/ ham and olives and other things in it. I did not eat that. I felt bad but it was making me queasy. Anyways, I stayed there for a while. Then everyone started working on their homework and I needed to work on mine too. As I am easily distracted by conversation, I went home to the apartment and did my homework. I was so productive! Then I took a little nap and told Madre I would not be back for dinner. We went out with some friends. We walked aroudn Gran Via (lots of shopping to do there). The best part of my day, however, was when we asked someone to take our picture and... he thought we were ITALIAN! HOORAY for not standing out as Americans! (it was the skinny jeans ;) ) Unfortunately I'm on a hold a bit for shopping, so I was not as much in the mood, and I was starving. The poor boys that were with us were so patient. Still they felt better when some Victoria Secret model was in crystal store nearby being photographed and waved at them. (Sorry boys, I don't know which one). We did, however, look around a book store for a while and I found some PRECIOUS childrens' books that I will probably go back for. We were all starving at this point but we really wanted to get outside of the large area we were in, so we got on the metro and headed to Chueca, where our teacher had told us had some great restaurants and what not. It was a very cute place with a lot of stuff to do. There were so many cute shoe stores, but they were closed. Still, we wanted to find someplace to eat outside and all of these areas were full. Our stomachs eating themselves, we wandered some more and when we did not find any place outside, we gave in and headed to Sol and the Plaza Mayor (this is great, we just wanted something a little less touristy). Still, I had not eaten in the Plaza yet so I was fine. We sat down outside this nice restaurant with outside chairs and enjoyed a great dinner in the plaza. I had chicken asado with patatas fritas (french fries and baked chicken basically). Then, I wanted to try a different wine, so I asked the waitor what the sweetest wine was. He said Malaga, which is a region in Spain, and showed me a wine, but I do not remember the name. It did start with an M. It was VERY sweet. It tasted like licorice. I really did not like it at all. Still, I tried it. It was a very powerful one little glass though, which I was not expecting. Someone said it may have been a dessert wine. After dinner and a few pictures with the pirate entertainer who really liked kissing the girls on the cheek (not me, b/c I told him I loved pirates so he let me hold the gun to his head in my picture and didn't ask me for money, haha). He ALSO thought were were Italian! Afterwards we went to a famous Chocolateria- San Gines. We had CHURROS! Churros are basically tubes of fried dough, and then you dip them in basically a milk chocolate fondue. They were fabulous! It was a great end to the night! Then we headed back to the metro and the boys made sure all of us got home safely. It was very sweet. It was so fun to go out, but we still were back pretty early, as the last metro run is at 1:30 AM so we have to make sure the boys can get back. That's all for Thursday!