"For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?"

The reason my camera won't work is because the USB cable seems to have broken on the flight over. I and others have assessed the problem and I bought another one of ebay so it should be here soon. In the mean time, I will try to find someone who's camera will take my memory card so that I can put the photos through their camera onto my computer. If you don't understand, don't worry about it, just be patient.

Classes have started obviously. First day of class was Tuesday. For Tues/Thurs class, I have Lit of Democratic Spain at 10:45am and History of Spanish Culture at 5:45pm. I already wrote about the fortunately cancelled class incident. So Mon/Wed I have Spanish Translation Workshop at 9am and Hispanic Culture: A Transatlantic Perspective at 12:30pm. Translation is cool, it's gonna be a lot of etymology I think. And the professor is English so that's always fun. Hisp Culture is taught by a latin american woman, I can't remember where she's from but it's either a caribbean country or south american. She's gonna be good. The classes are an hour and a half long, and I know that's only 15 more minutes than the longest classes normally but it kills me. But I think my classes sound interesting.

You know in middle school when everyone is ugly and you feel like everyone is judging every single step you make, and there's that group of girls that make you feel like that the most? That's kinda what Spanish girls make us American girls feel like, we've talked about it. How is it that they are all so naturally thin, and evenly tanned, with gorgeous full hair, and amazing senses of style? How, why, where did they come from? Is there a geographic evolutionary reason for this? Maybe Hist of Span Culture will shed some light on it. But man, when I just wanna wear a tshirt and jeans with flip-flops, it just sticks out so horribly. Also, we're kind of loud. Americans are loud, it just is the way it is. I try not to be, but the people I'm around are loud. And when you're sitting at dinner in the cafeteria at the residencia and your 2 American male friends start reminiscing about the WWF, you should get up and leave. One of them actually got up and started recreating different wrestling moves. Spaniards were staring like those girls do in middle school. I'm. Not. Kidding. I was horribly embarrassed. Why do some of the people in this group not understand that Europeans have certain stereotypical ideas about loud, rude, ignorant, piggish Americans, and that we should try NOT to support those ideas. I can't go anywhere with these people anymore.

In the same turn, Spaniards do some stupid things. Like driving. What the hell do they think when they drive? I don't get it. If there's an intersection and it's backed up, why do they always continue on into the middle of the intersection as far as they can go. They know the light's going to turn red and the people from the other direction are gonna try to get through. But then they can't get through so they LAY ON THE HORN LIKE NOTHING YOU'VE EVER HEARD. Like the horn will magically make the gridlock go away, or the cars in the intersection will somehow be able to back up, or the drivers will feel bad about it give them an apology present. Honking the horn in the gridlock situations does absolutely nothing, yet it's the loudest situation ever. They literally lay on the horn for 20 to 30 seconds straight. Like maybe 15 seconds isn't long enough for us to get the idea that you want to get through but you're blocked so you're pissed; however at 20 seconds, we will definitely understand your position on the situation. WHAT THE HELL, SPANISH PEOPLE? Also, since this gridlock happens at every slightly busy redlight, you'd think someone at some point would stop and think, "Hmm, maybe since it's clogged up, I'll wait out of the intersection so that I won't cause a gridlock." Nope. This happens so often and it's like they have a 3 second rebound rate and the situation is forgotten and they learn nothing. It's ridiculous. And the people honking are hypocrits. All the people in the blocked lane are honking as though they are saintly drivers and have never done this crap, and all the bad drivers are in the blocking lane. Something else I like to laugh at in Madrid: the prevalent mullet and rat tail. Those are really really popular hairstyles for men and women equally. It's sort of gross, but of course, there's no real trailer trash here, only Eurotrash, so it looks a little classier just because they're Spanish. And the man-purse, and man-cropped pants. I like them, when will that trend hit America? Probably never because America thinks it's "gay, dude". Hey, remember the Spanish Inquisition? And the Constitution where everyone has equal rights? Yeah, so why can gay people get married in Spain and not in America?


Well that was a rather long-winded rant. Here's some further event updates: I walked to school yesterday, it was pleasant but I got blisters on the bottoms of both my feet, and when I got to school my class was cancelled. We went to Casa de Las Cervezas last night for all you can drink sangria, xalimocho, and beer for 10Euro. (Xalimocho [hall-ee-mow-cho] is a Basque drink of red wine and coke, it's delish.) It was fun, but mostly American students. Then we tried to go to a club, but the self-appointed "leader" of the group got lost and then pissed off so that was not fun. And today I was told that I can move to the "flat" down the hall from my current "flat" today or tomorrow to live with an Spanish girl. She will move out the 15th, but then they will just put in another girl. I'm kind of sad to leave Gisella, my Puerto Rican roommate, but we both are disappointed at how little we're speaking Spanish so it's for the best. Plus we're only right down the hall. Today, a little group of us went to Parque del Retiro. This little group was probably my favorite people in the program, minus a few who weren't there. It was me, Gisella, Stacey, Kacie, Courtney, and Rastin. We tried to plan little European trips but we couldn't because we didn't know our schedules. But we (plus 1 or 2 others) are the select few who are here to immerse ourselves in the culture and learn Spanish and stop loooking American. So I prefer our company to that of the entire group. But towards the end of our Parque excursion, I started feeling sick, and I still do a little. I think I'm dehydrated... probably from last night, let's be honest. So I've been here for a bit just sitting and drinking water. We wanted to go out tonight, somewhere where drinking is not so pervasive, and I want to join everyone. We may see a movie or go to a dance club. I don't know. Tomorrow, I have to move out of my room though, and I have a ton of reading to do, so I should go out tonight while I know I can. Allllllrighty then, as I am know talking in fragmented thoughts, I'm going to end this post. Thanks for sticking with my babbling for so long.