European Basketball

Today Bill and I thought it would be a good idea to finally get some exercise into our schedule. So, naturally we decided that basketball in a European environment would be fun. Well it was pretty fun, and I carried the team on back just like Greg Jennings. There were four teams of five and we played a tournament with games to 11.  So game 1 I was told by Aerial this jacked black Spanish dude to guard the 58 year old grandpa. (Pretty sure they thought I was a bad player). Then the next game we played a dude that was 7'2'', but the biggest woman that has ever graced the court! Long story short my team won of course..come on what'd you expect? (

Oh another note...European basketball is so soft. They call a foul if you breathe on them. No joke. It was also pretty funny to listen to them argue, too. I got involved with my minimal Spanish as often as I could.

Finally took some pictures of my escuela!! Its a typical Spainsh building...more space up then diagonally. The hallways are not built for large crowds either. Which is why people are always outside in the courtyard or out front of the building.

OCEANOGRAPHY class!!! woooo. Actually pretty interesting. We had a class field trip to the naval museum in Madrid today, but I could not go because I had class at that time. So, tomorrow I'm going at noon and I will have pictures up tomorrow night/Sunday morning.

Here's the courtyard!

Sitting in the courtyard. It was around 60 that day, which was really nice!

Okay. This is by far my favorite part of the campus. This is a balcony/courtyard that is on top of the school. We go there because it's the warmest and has a cool view.

This is the view from the balcony. 

And this.

This is the outside of the school from the roadside.

This is the front of the campus and this is where all the regular students go and smoke cigarettes and chat.

Pete, Courtney, and I on our way to grab a 3 euro sandwich. This is a really cool little shop. We go there for lunch quite often.

(Inside of the sandwich place)

So I should have some better pictures up tomorrow after we go to the naval museum. So check back tomorrow for some pictures. Buenas noches!

Busy, Rainy, Boring, Day

Today was a long day with a lot of nothing going on. I woke up around 10 and ate breakfast with Pete and Bill. Then got ready for class and read the chapter we had assigned in Accounting then headed out with Peter for the metro. The metro is becoming like second nature at this point already. They are so easy to use in comparison to the one's in Saint Louis. Class today went by pretty quick. My teacher speaks a lot of broken English, but for some reason she's easy to understand and I think because she speaks that poor of English I listen closer (I get bored during lectures really easily). I was able to get a lot of my homework done today for later on in the week though, but who cares about that. The important news of the day was that rained!!!! It was soooo cold. It was actually sleet more than anything, and the wind was pretty bad as well. Luckily for me the metro stop to get to school is not that far away so it only took a quick jog to get out of the cold. Pictures of my school and monuments around Sol will hopefully be up later in the week, weather permitted. It was way to rainy/sleety to do anything worthwhile today. I decided to end today's post with a quote ,"What the hell is going on out there?!"   Thanks Vince. Those words are inspirational...GO PACK

- Today I am a Packers fan in mourning. They called that being ready to play last night? WOW. Stayed up til 2 to watch that poor poor poor display of football. Packers beat themselves, guess next year is our year. Now I have to listen to ESPN talk about how the Packers choked and Tom Brady is the MAN.

First Week of School

This week has been a lot of fun, but next week is when classes will officially be giving out homework and all that. My schedule is not bad I have one class on Monday @ 1. Then Tuesday-Friday I start at 11 and go til 2. Ill have 5 classes total. The metro system here in Madrid is super easy to use as well and our commute to school is around 30 min which can be longer depending on the timing of the metrolinks. 

This is from Saturday at one of the parks next to our apartment. The amount of graffiti in Madrid is insane. Its everywhere!! I just thought that this graffiti was really cool.

The picture below is a picture of the basement of the apartment complex we live in. We are up on the 13th floor and have ran into a lot of occupants. The owner always tells people when he sees them that we are only here for 4 months and will be gone soon in Spanish (He thinks we dont know what he is saying).

The kitchen!! We spend a lot of time in there for breakfast. Senora and her mad start cooking our dinner around 4 and its served between 8 and 9. We have not had a bad meal the entire time we've been here. They are amazing cooks!!

My little cozy bed. My feet hang over the edge so I always sleep in the fetal position to avoid the awkwardness of having my feet be cold. Anyone over 6'1'' should know where I am coming from. 

This is another picture from the park that Pete and I went to. They have ping pong tables all over the place. Dad: You know what this looks like right? Remember..21-12 at Thanksgiving! hahaha practice up pops.

I noticed this needle looking building, like the one in Seattle, on our way in from the airport. I wanted to get to know what it was, and I found out it is a "hub" basically where all satellites for tv, internet, etc. is stored for the part of town we live in. 

Afternoon in Sol

This is a part of town in Madrid called Sol. It's a huge tourist place. This is where we went out last night. We went to a bar called Dubliners and met two kids our age that go to the University of Dublin in Dublin, Ireland. Two of the nicest guys we have met yet, although everyone here has been overly nice to us.

One of the shops in Sol. Basically like a convenience store, just extremely expensive. Some of the girls that we know from back home live kitty corner to this shop in Sol. 

Can ya guess which one is the guy? There are these types of artsy fartsy  people everywhere on the street. He would jump up and make noise when people who weren't noticing him would walk by. It was hilarious he got a lady to jump.

The building in the way back to the left is where we live. We're the second highest balcony on the right side of that building. The view from the apartment is pretty awesome as well.

I'm Here!!!!

           I landed in Madrid at 1:10, a little behind schedule because of delays at the worst airport in the world..London Heathrow. The trip started out with an expected, but at the same time unexpected goodbye from mom. She began to cry as I told her I had to go. I guess she is sad that her favorite son won't be a call away, but rather a skype away and we all know she has trouble with electronics so I understand why she was sad. I mean I would be to if I was forced to learn how to use a simple, user-friendly application like skype jk. Love you mom and miss you, dad, and everyone already. Anyways, the trip over the pond was really simple and easy. Plenty of food on the flight over, but no time for me to sleep on the way over : /. Once I arrived in London, I was laid over for 45 min longer than I had expected, but was able to meet some people while sitting at the airport. The first person I met was a girl from Germany who was actually an American from Los Angeles who was going home to see her family for her birthday. She had been stranded in the London airport for 2 days and nights because Virgin airlines over booked their flight and had no alternate way to get her to the United States.
          Once I landed in Madrid, I realized that my dumbass forgot to write down my senora's address. So 1. I had no internet to access that information 2. I had no idea where Peter was because I didnt have my cell phone 3. I was screwed. Luckily, I dont really know how, but I found Peter an hour into my panic because he had just gotten in from a 3 hour delayed flight because of a medical emergency that occurred over the Atlantic that required them to go back to JFK. How lucky am I??!!! Thanks Pete! The first night here senora made us a three course meal and it was really good. New cuisines, but really good. I told myself I was going to take a nap after I unpacked, but it turned into a 5 hr power nap.
          After dinner, Bill and I had the brilliant idea of going to Sol at 10 pm on a Sunday expecting partying to still be occurring because we were told that Madrid is one of the craziest towns in the world for nightlife. Well, NO ONE was out. I knew the looks that we were getting from every hooker, restaurant, and Spaniard was not a  good look. They were probably thinking "Dumb Americans!" On a lighter note, Bill and I tried as hard as possible to get the hookers to bother Peter while we were walking by saying "He like!" to everyone we say. If we were in America Peter could have places 10 or more sexual assault charges on the fabulous women of the street.
        Gotta go though...dinner time! Adios!