Chachi que no.

For the past two weeks we've been taking this orientation course to get us prepped for our actual classes, which start next Monday. Our profesora, Teresa, has just been reviewing grammar with us so it's been pretty easy. I actually have a presentation tomorrow, so naturally I decided to write this post instead of working on that. Teresa has been great. She's really nice and our two hours of class each day go by super fast. Plus, since we're the dumber class, we are allowed to goof around (but just a little).

One of the things that she has been working on with us are colloquial phrases. It's fun because we don't usually learn things like that in school, we have to learn it on the streets (or the corners). Anyway, one of things we learned is how to say "cool": ¡Qué guay! or ¡Chachi que sí! So we've been throwing these fun new words around because we are so hip and fetch (I wonder how you say "fetch" en Español?). Little did I know that we were mislead. I was talking to my host sister, who is about 26 or so, and she told me that only losers say ¡chachi que sí!. Thanks a lot, Teresa.

For those of you who don't know, I am blessed to have some of my best friends here in Europe with me this semester. Lauren is in Barcelona, so she is super close and I'll be able to see her at least once, probably more. Blair and Bri are both studying in Roma, which is practically walking distance. I am sharing this information with you because yesterday, I was Skyping with Blair while she was packing (she left home just today) and was able to snap an absolutely beautiful screenshot of her. Enjoy.

Breathtaking.

For class, we had to do a group project. Each group got assigned un barrio (like a neighborhood) en Madrid, and then had to go to that area to do research, take photos, and all that jazz. I sit by these two annoying girls in class, Hanna and Julia, so I was unfortunately stuck working with them. We had to go to El Barrio de Salamanca - comparable to Madison Avenue in Chicago.

Julia Using WiFi Gratis

Big Fish, Fancy Restaurant

¡Qué chic!

I trust that everyone knows what a churro is. No, wait - stop. You don't know what a churro is. You haven't had a churro unless you've been to España and had churros con chocolate. There are a million little cafés here, most of which serve this Spanish gift from God/Mother Nature. When you order churros con chocolate, you get a steaming mug of thick, melted chocolate. On the side you get a bunch of churros (not like the ones in America - much different and much better), which you then dip into said chocolate. When you're done eating your churro, you drink what's left of your chocolate. Going for c&c has already become one of my favorite pasatiempos. It pains me to think that I only have five months left to eat them.

Lamia Really Loves Chocolate

Yesterday, I had planned to go to Parque de Retiro, which is a really big and beautiful park here in Madrid. But by the time I got around to actually leaving my piso, the sun wasn't going to be up for much longer so I decided to go somewhere closer. There is a park right by my piso, el Parque de Atenas, that I went to instead. After I took some neat pictures, I got bored and needed a change of scenery. Lucky for me, another park sits adjacent to Atenas. Since I had only seen this other, bigger park through its fence, I thought it would be fun to go explore. I imagine that it would have been fun, had I figured out how to get in. I literally walked around the whole perimeter of the area looking for an opening, but no such luck.  ¡Qué frustrante! I might try to hop the fence tomorrow. I'll figure it out eventually, but for now the only views I got were from outside of the gates. The pictures are all relatively ugly, considering that it's winter here and there aren't any flowers, but bear with me.

Note: If you look at the picture above, you'll notice that there is quite a bit of graffiti on and around the sign. There is so much graffiti here - it's everywhere. Somehow it doesn't bother me, though. At home, I associate graffiti with the ghetto, gang activity, and huffing. But here, there is so much graffiti that it all kind of blends in. In a lot of places, it almost seems like it should be there. It's hard to explain - I'll try to post some more pictures later to help describe what I mean.

When I walk by here at night, there are lots of people drinking on the playground.

Weird Tree

Evil Fence

Other Park

Peeking at Other Park Through the Fence

Monumento Cerca a Mi Casa

Random Pictures

Candy

Hanna With La Catrina

Lola, Mi Perrita

Sol

We're leaving for Paris in three days! When I think about it, I always get this song from Anastazia stuck in my head (should I stop watching Disney movies...?). Listen HERE. I'm going with a group of eight people from my program, and I'm so excited.

C'est la vie. Au revoir!