Four finals, two birthdays, and one new stereo later...

So happy to have finally made it through the disaster that was finals. I don't want to talk about them too much because, let's face it, that shit's boring. But I'll give you a quick synopsis of my last two weeks. My first final, Estructura Social de España, turned out to be on a different day than the professor had told us for the entire year. Luckily one of my EAP friends stopped by her office hours a few days before the final to find out it was earlier and in a different classroom. I missed my second final, Historia Contemporánea de las Américas, because Danielle and I heard the teacher say the test was at "dos y media", when all along she had said the test was at "doce y media". Luckily the test was offered again at 7:30pm that night, so we came home napped and studied a little more before taking the final for real. My third final on Cervantes was probably the scariest of them all, because for some reason Erin and I thought our final was on Thursday morning. But when Erin went to a study group Tuesday night she found out the final was actually Wednesday at 8:30 in the morning. Needless to say, I pulled my first all-nighter ever (for school purposes, of course). There was no major disaster with my fourth final on literary myths of Spain. I basically got to write another essay on Don Quijote.

After all the stressing and cramming, I'm so happy to be done with those classes. Those early mornings, the fight to stay awake (as you can observe in my extensive note-taking), and many a "cafe con leche para llevar por favor", has paid off and I probably learned a few things this semester like... the US civil war was fought between the northern whites and the southern slaves (???), Don Quijote is a lunatic who thought a flock of sheep was an army, Spaniards don't really like immigrants (unless their Chinese, since they're hard working), and... yeah I can't think of much else.

In between studying for finals I got to celebrate the birthdays of my two roomies, Danielle and Erin. When the clock ticked midnight on Danielle's birthday we surprised her with handle pulls, loud music, and we even made her do a birthday dance. Later that day we went to a delicious sushi restaurant off of Gran Via called 19 Sushi Bar. I ordered the dragon roll and it was delicious but I'm not so sure it rivals the dragon roll at Kyotos in Santa Barbara. Oh how I miss California food. Anyways, later that night we had a raging botellón (pregame) at our piso and then went out! Here's some fotos (not released on facebook yet by the way!).






Last night we celebrated Erin's birthday by going to La Mordida, a mexican food restaurant in Chueca. Santi and I shared nachos and fajitas de pollo. Q rico los nachos! While they don't even begin to rival Freebird's nachos, they do the job. Mexican food has definitely been one of the things I miss most about home. I'm shocked at how uncommon good Mexican food is here. I understand that Spain and Mexico have completely different cultures and blah blah blah, but c'mon, why does my Spaniard boyfriend not recognize refried beans on our plate of nachos? And why did he confuse the words frijoles and jalapeños once? I'm not surprised because he's spanish and should know, I'm surprised because I think EVERYONE should know the difference between jalapeños and frijoles.

We had a debate the other night when Santi claimed that spanish food had more variety than american food. Not possible. I've lived here for a solid 5 months and I've even grown to appreciate spanish food, but there's no way it has more variety than american food. The main ingredients of spanish food are: jamón, manchego cheese, bread, egg, jamón, olive oil and potatoes. How can spanish food have that much variety when you don't even know what beans are? But Spain, it's not your fault you don't have that much variety in your food, the only real neighboring country that would influence you is France, and we all know Spain and France aren't besties...and it's pretty obvious you haven't taken any pointers from France...since their food seems to be danker.

Now America, although you have high levels of fuel consumption and obesity accompanied by a steady decline in levels of education and literacy, your food es de puta madre. How lucky you are to have such a bountiful selection of native foods from North, South and Central America to choose from. The world can thank the Americas for avocado, chili peppers, tomatoes, vanilla, pineapple, peanut, papaya, corn, and chocolate since all these foods first originated in the Americas.

Anyways, back to Erin's birthday. After dinner we came back to our piso to drink and play with our new stereo! Our old ipod player broke somehow so we decided we needed a new one in time for Erin's birthday party. I didn't realize this, but we live literally one block away from the street in Madrid most popular for having stereo system stores. Although the stereo is really too big for our piso... Danielle and I couldn't resist such a good deal.

Even though I've had finals, I managed to make it to two soccer games in the last few weeks! The first game was Real Madrid vs. idontremember. We ended up arriving really late to the game because someone thought it started like an hour later than it did. Not fun paying 50+ euro to see half a game from the highest possible seats available. The second game was much better! A bunch of people in my program all got together at cien montaditos before the game and then we went to together. It was Spain vs. Colombia and there were a lot of roudy fans on both sides. The stadium was so full of excitement and cheering and weirdly...drum rolls. It felt like I was in a modern day Colosseum. K I can't blog anymore, tengo resaca.

Here's some more random pictures I haven't loaded on facebook for all those who have requested more photos! These are pictures from nights in Madrid and there's also a picture of the salad I like to make.

Día de los Reyes Magos

Every January 6th Spaniards celebrate a holiday dedicated to the Magi, or three kings, that brought presents to the baby Jesus! The parable says that King Herod, a crazy baby killer, asked the three kings to find Jesus and tell him where he was at, so that he too could pay homage to the little one. Luckily the three kings had a dream, realized that Herod just wanted to shank the baby, and decided to ignore King Herod's wishes. Although I'm not sure about the actuality of the three kings, I was more than down to eat "roscon" y and drink chocolate caliente in celebration of this "event". Dia de los Reyes Magos seems to be valued equally if not more than Christmas, here in Spain. I don't mind that. Seems better to focus on three baby-saving kings than on a judgmental, cookie scarfing Santa Claus.

I tried two different types of roscon, one with "nata" (cream) and one without. But of course, being the "gordi" that I am, I liked the Roscon with whipped cream in the middle. Santi, his mom, and I all failed to find the porcelain "sopresa" in our first pieces of Roscon. Although I did find it in my second piece...apparently you don't get any good luck from that. Oh, and can't forget, our roscon was accompanied by thick, rich, and creamy valor chocolate! Hot chocolate in Spain is so different from America's. It incredibly thick and filling... yet whenever I have it, I seem to be the only one who can't finish the whole thing. Spaniards drink it like milk. Such bosses.



After breakfast and a few cat naps, Santi's mom and her friend prepared a feast for lunch! We had chicken adobo, fried rice, langostinos (shrimp), salad, some anchovy fish dish (that I wasn't adventurous enough to try), and my favorite wine in the world, Lambrusco Dell'Emilia Tinto (basically just bubbly red wine < 2e at your mom&pop supermarket in Madrid). I feel so lucky I get to have real homecooked meals at Santi's. I may not miss Spanish food when I come home, but I'll definitely miss Josefa's filipino food!


That night I went to Reina Bruja with the gang (minus my roomies who were still recovering from the night before), and had a really good time. Reina Bruja never fails to have great music and good company. I feel like a regular these days.

New Year, More Blogging

One of my new year's resolutions is to start blogging again! I know my blog has been kind of a failure, but I'm going to give it another go.

After looking back on the last year, where I've been, the friends of made, the lessons I've learned, I'd say I've had a pretty fabulous 2010. Let's look at some highlights:
-Took all UD courses winter quarter, 3 of which were literature, and managed to get all A's! (...k, one A-)
-Enjoyed the sun, sorority stuff, and some well needed relaxation during spring quarter..
-Spent the summer traveling to Montana, Las Vegas, Florida, NorCal and New York...all while dreaming/ thinking/ preparing for my year abroad.
-Dealt with a significant relationship in my life ending.
-Arrived in Madrid, struggled through culture shock, a little homesickness, and some really disgusting dorm food.
-Made new bestfriendships with my amazing roommates. We are practically family now :)
-Traveled to Barcelona, Rome, Amsterdam, Dublin, Gran Canaria, Granada, Córdoba.
-Found romance unexpectedly. I met Santi one night at a club in Madrid... I didn't want to get my hopes up, but I knew he could be someone special in my life :) Not only has he taught me Spanish, he has welcomed me into his world of amazing friends and delicious comida filipina. He's changed the way I view life and love and made my abroad experience all that much better.
-Welcomed my parents to Madrid for Christmas and New Years! Having them here was the best present I could have asked for. After the holidays I realized how important it is to me to eventually live somewhere close (or at least closer) to home when I grow up.

And now here are a few things I'm looking forward to in 2011:
-Becoming fluent in Spanish.
-Seeing my best friends Linda & Stephen, at least a few times, in EUROPA!
-Visiting London, Berlin, Copenhagen, Brussels, Paris, Venice, Florence, Greece and hopefully more places!
-Living it up for the next 6 months in Madrid.
-Coming home to California and it's amazing food <3
-Turning 21, heading to VEGAS.
-Turning 21, heading to NAPA.
-SENIOR YEARRR, LIVING ON DP!!!


Thinking about coming home makes me excited but sad at the same time. I don't want to get ahead of myself, I still have 6 months left! In a few days I'll be celebrating Dia de Los Reyes with Santi and his mom! I guess it's a Spanish tradition, every January 6th, to eat "roscon" for breakfast. Roscon is a doughy sweet bread that has a hidden porcelain surprise of sorts! Whoever gets the surprise in their piece of roscon has good luck for the rest of the year. Hope its meee! Later on thursday we're going shopping! Apparently stores here do this "Rebajas" thing after the holidays every year. There's supposed to be mad sales... And I want new boots.

Oh and update: Soy profesora de inglés! That's right, Marissa Morimoto, English Teacher at your service! I currently have two students. One is a 40 yr old, mas o menos, professional who needs to perfect his English for his new job. I spend a lot of time preparing for our classes because they are each TWO hours long and I'm scared of running out of things to do. My other student is a 12 yr old girl. Our class starts next week, but I have a feeling I'll have more fun with it. It's pretty easy money, considering I just get to speak in my native tongue, play games and do grammar exercises... pero mi jefa es una puta! If I didn't want the extra money so bad I wouldn't take all her shit. Maybe on my way out of Spain she'll get a piece of my mind.

That's all for tonight, folks. Over and out.

A rough week.

I still love America.

The Spanish public education system makes me appreciate the UC system SO MUCH. I started class at Complutense on Monday and it was definitely a cultural experience. First of all, I'm not officially enrolled in any classes yet because EAP doesn't allow us to matriculate until a week after classes start. We also wont know if the classes we attended during the first week of school are even on the "approved course list." Disorganized much? Anyways, here's a run-through of my day:
Cervantes, my first class- I've never fought so hard to stay awake in my entire life.
Teatro griego- couldn't find the classroom, gave up. Would it really break the bank if the university put some signs on the front of their buildings?
Mitos (Myths)- professor doesn't show.
Literatura española desde 1975- professor says the class will be "mierda" if all the foreigners try to take it.
Literature hispanoamericano I- professor says the class will be too difficult for you.

The second day was much better. Cervantes was slightly more interesting. I attended a history class of the americas, very interesting from the spanish point of view. The mitos professor showed up and told us class was cancelled for the next two weeks (woo hoo)! (Who does that?) And I plan to take an anthropology class at the other Complutense campus starting next week!

Campus reminds me of a scene that should have been in Inception. The literature buildings are modern looking, with clean lines and lots of stairs and there is a large courtyard with overgrown weeds and randomly a few beds of roses. The mixture of modern architecture, with weeds, roses, benches, and graffiti everywhere is just kinda spooky.

Most of the graffiti I see everywhere is about women's rights, Latin America, or Israel. I had no idea that there are Spanish people who think that the government should be helping Latin America. It's an interesting topic and I want to look into more. Also I didn't know that there was still a strong anti-Jewish sentiment in Spain. I thought that was over centuries ago, but apparently not. The graffiti about Israel basically accuses the country of committing genocide.


Anyways, as my last post said, I was supposed to be in Brussels right now. But thanks to the Belgian and Spanish national strike, I have been deprived of the waffles I so seriously desired. Who is begging to go to Brussels? Uh, I guess I was. I think everyone should just boycott Ryanair instead of going to work. Ryanair es mierda. My roomies and I had to call 5-6 times before they promised to refund our flights... and I had a bad feeling that's not even going to happen. So much for going to Brussels. I don't think I'm going to try again... I already spent all the money and time I had in me for Brussels. I hope Easyjet is better.

Inception

If you've seen the recent movie, Inception, and you remember how when the characters did strange things in their dreams their projections would begin to stare at them. Well, that's kinda what it's like here in Madrid. When spaniards hear you talking in english or when you're walking down the street with your girlfriends (and you look nice) some people may begin to stare. And it feels like the staring as a domino effect. Like when one person points in the sky, everyone has to look... well, if one man begins to stare, his entire possy will start to stare. Sometimes the staring is out of curiosity and sometimes the staring only precedes the catcalling.

My friends and I have managed to just make jokes out of those situations so it hasn't become too big of a deal. The cultural differences are really interesting to examine though. Here in the dorms, the spaniards are extremely loud and sometimes even obnoxious. I thought Americans were supposed to be the noisy and annoying ones.

For the most part, however, the spaniards I have come into contact with have been jovial and patient people. I've already gone to look at a few pisos (a piso is a flat) for rent and the landlords were SO nice and spoke slowly so we could understand them. The first piso I looked at was in Palacio (a certain barrio/ neighborhood). It was right smack in the middle of so many pubs, restaurants, etc. but the room I would have had only had a window to the interior of the building and there was no living room. And for some reason, my room wouldn't have gotten internet...strange. BUT AHHH, the second piso I went to look at was BEAUTIFUL. It is located in Sol (pretty much in the center of Spain), right next to the Plaza Mayor and the Ópera metro station on Calle Arenal. GREAT AREA... but Danielle and I would have had to share a room. And for the price we'd be paying, we can probably find a place with our own habitación.

Oh the food here in the dorms is HORRIBLE. They put HAM in EVERYTHING. I can't even pretend to be hungry when I enter the dining hall. Its like my stomach is begging me not to eat.

But the nightlife is AMAZING. On wednesday, Erin (my roomie), Danielle, Scott and Chris went to Joy and Palace (two clubs in Sol). It was funny how on the first night all of us SBers found each other and went out together. I realized that night that I LOVE CLUBS. The girls got in for free everywhere and we all got free sangria at Palace. We danced and drank and had a grand time. I even made friends with some of the people working there :) It was a great way to start off our time here in Spain.

Last night the entire program went to Kapital, a 7 story high nightclub in Madrid. I LOVED THE LATIN FLOOR. The men actually dance here! They were swinging Danielle and I around like we were pro salsa dancers! I didn't even attempt to wear heels either of these nights I went out. My feet hurt enough from all the walking I've been doing during the day. I'm definitely in the market for a pair of grandma shoes (super comfy) that I can pull off as fashionable shoes for all the walking I do when I'm exploring the city.

School starts on Monday and I don't know how I feel about that. While I do want to brush up on my spanish, I also don't want to have class everyday! :( But I just have to remember its only for a month... and then hopefully I'll only have class twice a week :).

Sorry this entry was so random and jumbled. I haven't had time to keep this updated with everything going on... but I'm going to get on top of it! Thanks for reading :)

PS- I bought my first bottle of wine the other day! Probably going to drink it tonight before dinner with some chicas...maybe it will make the food taste better.