Answers

It has come to my attention that since I have been so intent on writing about my travels, there is little information about my life in Madrid (thank you Grammy!). There were no out of town trips for me this weekend so now is a perfect time. I live in a ground floor apartment, which is called 'bajo' (literally: low) and the next floor up is the first floor. My flat mates are two Scottish girls, two French girls, and one Spanish guy. The other girls are all studying something along the lines of business/marketing/economics. The Spaniard is getting a masters degree in railroad engineering and he just applied for a job/internship with the London Underground, it seems really intense! I speak Spanish with everyone but usually English with the Scottish girls, but I'm working on changing that. So far, everyone is very nice and easy-going and we all get along quite well. As far as friends go, I have a main group from the program (the people I've been traveling with) but I'm friends with other WIPTers as well; it would be hard not to be, the program is just full of cool people. I haven't scored any Erasmus (European students studying abroad) or Spanish friends yet, but all in good time. The bus stop where I get the G bus that takes me right to the building where our program is located is a 6-7 minute walk from my apartment straight west on my street. Said bus stop is in the same location as my main entrance/exit for the Moncloa metro stop. The distance from my building to this the nearest metro stop is worth it because it means we're in closer proximity to other stations which I've come to appreciate as it sometimes helps prevent unnecessary transfers. I might have mentioned this before, but I continue to enjoy finding new places to shop/eat/etc. in my neighborhood. My usual supermercado has become a store called Simply City, mainly because there are two within a 3 block radius of my apartment. My eating is pretty varied, but to give an example I'll tell you what I ate today. For breakfast I had instant coffee made with milk, a pb&j sandwich and oranje juice. For lunch, I split the Menú del Día in the cafeteria at the facultad with my friend Ben; its a lot of food and only 2.35 euros if you share! For dinner, I made an omelet with eggs (or does that go without saying?), onion, chorizo, and leftover pasta called tiburones (sharks; they are kind of a cross between shell pasta and macaroni and sort of look like little sharks when cooked). I also had a salad with bag lettuce, tomato, and vinegar and olive oil (they really love that combo here, and with good reason!). I've been doing a lot of omelet/scramble things using eggs, onion, potatoes, etc. but I'm planning on cooking a bunch of chicken breast tomorrow to have on hand (as long as I remember to put it in the refrigerator before I leave for class!). Don't worry, I'm staying on top of eating fruits and vegetables.

Andalucía

"La vida es como un elefante que sólo sabe ir hacía delante."
Life is like an elephant that only knows how to move forward.
-A quote I found among the writings on the bathroom walls at the Complutense.
I really like the idea behind it; that there is nothing that can change what has already happened, which I think the entirety of the human race has a hard time coming to terms with. In a desperate attempt to connect this to what I have to say: My friends and I had to move beyond the fact that we took an eight hour bus at midnight and then had to walk over an hour in the off an on rain to get to where we were staying because we were in CÁDIZ! Later on that day, the sun came out quite a bit, and we went down to the beach. Only three people actually swam, but I put my feet in the water ans we all enjoyed the sand and the waves from the Atlantic; one of the first things we notices when we got off the bus was that you could smell the ocean in the air. Because we were late in planning our trip, there were no hostels open, however, one of the listings on the hostel website was Casa de David. We sent two nights in in rooms of David's apartment that he rents out to travers. He is an extremely nice guy, a transplant from Buenos Aires with a lot of travel experience and an extensive language repertoire.
The coolest experience for me was seeing the cámera obscura. Near the top of a tower, there is a completely darkened room where a series of mirrors reflect an image onto a concave white screen where a moving image is progected. You could say its an antiquated form of streaming video, and it was the first one in Spain. On the top of said tower, there is an amazing view of all of old Cádiz and the ocean. There's something I find very personal about seeing a city from above. On the ground there, no one would expect that most of the roofs are red, you can also see everyones laundry hanging out to dry :P On the ride back, we saw all that we had missed by taking a night bus there. The scenery is absolutely wonderful and ranges from small rolling hills to flat land with what might be olive groves to mountains (that we knew were there withoug even seeing them because of the obscenely windy part of the ride Friday night). Another interesting fact, we the sunrise on two of the three mornings of the trip :)
Now, seeing as I'm here as a student I should probably talk about classes. We had our first week of real classes las week, and my favorite so far is the Taller de Teatro Contemporáneo (Contemporary theater workshop), but thats no surprise. The professor is so enthusiastic and engaging, two things which are lacking in my Complutense class. I'm not sure what exactly is the deal eith that class yet. I can understand the professor well enough, but she speaks very quietly and people in the class make a lot of noise. There are also a lot of other "extranjeros" in the class, which im not excited about, but its expectid I guess because is is a firt year course.
It occured to me how much more my apartment (0r any place, I suppose) feels like home when you return after staying the night elsewhere. I'm enjoying the process of getting to know my flatmates better and looking forward to future bonding time. I also like meeting roomates of friends from the program and getting exposure to so many different kinds of accents and the people that go along with them whether they're from Spain or not. Its still early, 10pm here, but I've got the "all I want is to go to sleep" bug now.
If you ever have any questions, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer in my next post!

Toledo

The curso intensivo is over! In the end, I think I appreciate it. For example, I went with some friends to Toledo and we were quoting our art professor in jest when we recognized something we learned about. It was neat to be able to identify the characteristics of certain types of architecture. To get to there, we took a 45 minute bus ride that cost 8 euros round trip. We didn't know exactly what to do once we got out of the bus station, but we walked up a huge hill and found the main part of the city. First, we got café (0f course, we had to get up at 7) and churros y chocolate. I'm not sure of a description that would do justice, so here. I know, right? We took oursleves on a tour of the city and got started finding some places of interest. Toledo has become such a touristy city, which is a little unfortunate but there are a lot of cool shops, especially sword shops. They sell replicas of swords of historical figures (El Cid Campeador, Christopher Columbus, Robin Hood, Los Reyes Católicos, Felipe II, etc) and movie characters. I totally geeked out over the replicas from the LOTR films; I think I heard that the swords used in the movies were made in Toledo! The main cathedral there is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life. Seeing all the detail craftsmanship was really moving; I don't know if it was just becaue I was hungry, but I definitely felt something when I walked in. After going to see El Greco paintings, we stopped for lunch and got the menú del día. This daily menu is offered at many restaurants, you choose one first plate, one second plate and it comes with bread, a beverage, and dessert. We then went and explored down by the river where a tour would not take you :) It was really satisfying being our own tour guides, we even made it back to the bus station without problems.
Now that I think about it, I've been here for a MONTH. It's just unbelieveable. I'm getting to know the city better all the time and I like pretty much everything about it except that so many people smoke everywhere. My clothes and hair always smell terrible after being out at a bar or a disco, but I guess I have to deal with it. I do think there is some legislation out about regarding smoking, but I can't remember right now. Our actual classes start this week, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyting will be like. Also, the weather has been nice and cool lately. I like that a lot but its really chilly in the mornings and before it would get hot enough in the afternoons that I wouldn't want to comit to carrying a jacket around all day; I think its about time for that. I have some things to do so this is all for now.
Un abrazo.