"Everybody likes to go their own way-- to choose their own time and manner of devotion."

It's been a few days since my last update. I try to stay on top of it every day, rather than write entries similar to the last one which is just a big flood of events. But when I moved rooms on Saturday, my wireless no longer worked. I tried everything I could think of, and even today I had the computer lady come and look at it, it wouldn't work. Then a few hours ago I was just messing with it because it felt hopeless, and I got it to work.

I made a 4 month calendar on notebook paper with pencil. I'm that cheap. I've been a huge mess without any kind of date system other than the Windows date and time setting. I have all the trips and days off filled in, and now I know which weekends I can go on trips. On my own, I'm going to London to visit Laura and Copenhagen to visit Bob. I'd like very much to visit Molly in Galway, but I can't find any flights. I'll continue working on it. A few of my fellow students and I have conspired to find flights to Amsterdam, Barcelona, Rome or Florence, Vienna and Prague, maybe Germany, and maybe Andalucia. Actually we're trying to organize a Barcelona trip for next weekend. This Saturday API takes us on a day trip to Toledo. I MUST buy new shoes before then. I've been wearing only 2 pairs, and I'm kinda sick of them, and I have a million blisters on the bottoms of my feet. I'd also like a new outfit by then as well, as nothing I have can be put together to create a Madrid-worthy outfit.

Friday night, after stating I wished to participate in a non-alcoholic activity, we went to a discoteca. Of course for me to enjoy myself dancing, I need to be a little tipsy because I have no rhythm and, as you know, I'm terribly self-concious. So I just have to cede a little control to the alcohol so that I can let myself dance. Granted, the club was pretty gosh darn cool, so I will know next time I can go even lighter on the imbibing because it was just that awesome. It's called Kapital, and it's a 6-floor discoteca. Yes, 6 floors. Cover is 15€, and includes one drink. The ground floor is the main dance floor and it plays Techno/House music. There were 4 dancers stationed 2 on the stage and 2 on little platforms to either side, maybe to further enhance the hotness that is Kapital. Usually it was 2 men and 2 women and, in my opinion, there's no way the men weren't gay. Also one of the women dancers was MOST DEFINITELY a man. No one believed me but, as my dear mother taught me, men's calf muscles don't start til 3/4 of the way up the calf, whereas women's calf muscles are at least 2/3 of the entire calf. This woman was just as hot as the other women, and I would have sworn she was women were it not for the obvious calf muscles. Spain is amazing. Anyway, on the main dance floor about every 10 minutes a BLAST of cold smoke/air/fog surged upon us from the discoteca heavens above. When dancing, the normal discoteca-goer tends to sweat due to excess movement. I, however, do not sweat because I don't move much. So the blasts of cold only made me colder, gracias a dios I had 2 shirts on... think about it... anything yet?... ahhh now you got it. The second floor (American third floor) was Hip Hop dance. I liked that the most because I recognized the songs, but we mostly stayed on the ground floor. The first foor (American second) was karaoke, and I never went to any of the upper floors. Here's the part where your jaw drops: I left at quarter of 6 in the morning. I know, hugely lame considering had I and the 2 other girls waited 15 minutes we could've taken the metro for free instead of paying 5€ for a taxi. The metro closes between 2am and 6am every day. It's rather inconvenient. That's why Madrid goes to bed at 6am. I'd really like to be on the 6am metro one time and see all the people whose alcohol buzzes are in between coming off of drunk and being hungover. That was my last night sleeping in cupboard 9G with Gisella. Courtney stayed over too because she lives a lot further away. On a sidenote we are 3 incredibly different girls, but we hang out just the 3 of us most of the time. I enjoy it.

Saturday I woke up at 11am and let Courtney and Gisella sleep til 2pm. Then we went to a restuarant called Nebraska, which is probably the rough equivalent of a diner, for breakfast/lunch. It was yummy and our camarero was a really dorky and nerdy guy who tried to speak English to us but we told him Spanish was fine and he said that was good because he was pretty bad at English. He made a lot of conversation with us, so we've decided to go there for lunch on weekends and sit in his section because he took good care of us. I think there's a chance he's got some sort of mild mild autism or something like that, he just seemed a little off. We passed by Nebraska yesterday and he was waiting an outdoor table and we said hi to him, and he said "Ay, las Americanas! Qué tal?" Yay, we get to be regulars at a restuarant in Madrid!

That night, we decided to have a wine and cheese night at Linnea and Kyle's apartamento. Linnea, Stacey, and Kacie organized it and bought a bunch of crackers and some cheese and wine. But we all brought wine and cheese. We finished all the wine. I only had 2 little plastic cups of wine, but I ate A LOT of cheese. I love cheese. They never did open my Brie, would it be rude for me to ask for it back? Saturday was also the day Tricia, a girl from a few of my Spanish classes at Mary Wash, arrived in Madrid a few days before her API Sevilla program started (orientation is in Madrid). We only really ever talked during class, but we did say to keep in contact while we're in Spain. So she emailed me and told me she was coming, and I said I'd take her out and gave her my cell phone number. She called me and I told her which metro station to go to and she came to wine and cheese night. She meshed very well with out group, and said she appreciated the wine and cheese night because she'd been in Germany for a month and was tired of going out. If I decide to go to Sevilla, I can contact her.

Sunday I did reading for classes most of the day. Courtney, Gisella, Kari, and I went out for a bit and ate at an Italian restaurant. I only had garlic bread because I'm saving money wherever I can. Then later that night after dinner, Courtney, Gisella, Rastin, and I went to Puerta del Sol to a churro cafe. I had my first ever churros y chocolate. THE MOST DELICIOUS THING EVER!! Janet and Mom, guess where I'm taking you at least once, it's not too far from your hotel either. You probably know what churros are, like a fried dough stick with sugar on top, and and then you get a cup of melted chocolate and you dip the churros into the chocolate. Oddly enough I was the only one to use almost all of the chocolate given to me... wonder why.

I returned to my room to meet my roommate, who had been gone for the weekend. Umm, I think she feels a bit put out by me. The cleaning lady had apparently moved the furniture after she left and before I moved in, because she came back and saw the room changed and probably thought I was a huge American bitch. She went to sleep in another girl's room because she had no roommate. She woke me up this morning coming into the room to get ready, but it was only about 10 min before I was gonna get up anyway. And now, none of her stuff is in the room. I know she's supposed to move out the 15th, maybe she moved out early or put all her stuff in her friend's room and is staying there. I'm somewhat offended if that's the case. But oh well, I can't even remember her name. I get a new roommate Oct 1, una mexicana se llama Inés, I'm sure she'll be way more chilled out than the madrileña girls.

Today I went to my 2 classes. One was Spanish Translation in which I feel brilliant, and the other was Hisp Culture Today in which I feel... retarded, maybe. I understand everything the professor is saying but I don't really participate because it's not exactly discussion so much as she'll say a bunch of things and then ask what seems to me like a rhetorical question. But apparently she's expecting people to call out an answer. Towards the end of the class she did that thing that teachers do when they think you're not listening and call on you for an answer. Only 1 of the 3 times she called on me, I had actually just done a weird yawn thing in which I most likely looked like I was not listening but I was, I just didn't know the answer. Also the classes are 90 min long, but Suffolk rules say the profs can either give up 10-15 min break in the middle or let us out 10-15 min early, and SHE DOESN'T. She talks the full 90 min, up to the second. It's wearisome.

I also went shopping today. Looked at shoes, have an idea of what I might like to buy but I don't know. And I bought a green shirt from Zara, a cool Spanish clothing company. Not very successful, but I wasn't really in the mood, I just felt it was necessary. I'll go again Wed or Fri. I finished all of tomorrow's reading on my transit to and from school on the metro. Only I felt weird because the book I have to read is called The New Spaniards, and it's in English, so I'm pretty much wearing a "Foreigner" sign. Fun. Oh well.

And here's a new phrase I learned today, "Que aproveche!" It means "Enjoy your meal," the Spanish "Bon appetit."