lunes, 20 de mayo

Lunes started our first full week of classes.  We woke up early to get to the Institute before class to print our first assignments but it was very difficult to get out of bed in the morning.  As usual we munched on our lovely breakfast of toast and peanut butter with a glass of water...getting a little old.  Once we got to class we began with singing our hearts out again, to '"sin ti no soy nada" and once again the song was stuck in our head all day...and night.  Once I was done with my classes I went down to the basement computer room and hung out with others while we got work done and waited for the history class to end.

Once all classes finished we headed back to our apartment for lunch.  While waiting for everything to be ready and served we got to hang out a little bit with Golfa el perro again :)

When we saw our lunch it smelt very good...but looked quite interesting.  At first glance I thought we were about to eat sea urchins and was slightly scared.  The meal was called arroz al horno and we had gazpacho on the side as well.  I scooped what looked like chicken and the rice I knew was safe into my bowl and some for Jen and we were content with how much we had.  But of course our mama took our bowls back and said "mas mas!" (more, more) and scooped a little of everythinggg into our bowls which was enough to feed nearly three people.  Jamel our host dad brought a tray of ice and asked if we wanted some and I can't say I have ever been more excited to see ice, for what I thought was for my water.  I said "si yo quiero por favor!" (yes i want some please) and he put the giant ice cube in my soup...disappointment sunk in real fast.

Arroz al horno: rice, tomatoes, black sausage, red sausage, tomatoes, garlic, and pork ribs

Gazpacho: de tomatoes and peppers

After lunch we worked on our homework for a little and then I took full advantage of siesta and took a good nap for an hour before we had to head off for our group adventure.  As usual we met up with Jake and John at the metro station to walk together to the Plaza for our group dinner later.  Because of getting lost the previous time we decided to leave an hour before we had to meet up, and when we finally had our directions correct this time it ended up only taking about 20 minutes to get there.  We have no idea how we got so lost last time because it was literally a straight shot from the metro station...all we cared about was that Lewis and Clarke had finally redeemed themselves!  Since we were so early we decided to walk around the little shops that were set up to waste some time and a little after we met up with the group to go to our tapas dinner.

Christine, Me, Jen in la plaza del virgen

En la Plaza

Our dinner was at a restaurant closed down just for us.  We were served vino blanco while we waited for the first round to come out.  The tapas consisted of bread, patatas bravas, tortilla de patatas, calamares, pollo al ajo, and aceitunas.  I tried everything there was except for the olives.  I gave up trying to like them after I ate one at dinner a night before.  We finished almost all of the tapas and our professors said we were the best group who actually tried a little of everything.  The bathroom in the restauarant was an experience as well because it was basically like a fun house because the ceilings were so low.  It was a perfect height for me of course but others like 6 foot Jake and other guys had to duck while walking.

El bano at the restaurant

Mi favorita! Patatas bravas!

After tapas a smaller group of us went to get ice cream after and it was like a mix between gelato and ice cream.  Fue delicioso!  After ice cream we went back to our house to hang out with Gemma a little before finishing homework and heading off to bed.  It was very nice to have a fun chat with Gemma and Jen just as us three because she was very helpful with our Spanish and we were able to have a lot of jokes.  We then went back to our room to finish up homework and headed off to bed to get ready for our classes the next day!