Valetine's Day Weekend

Hello Lovers!

First of all, thank you to all of the people who have given me positive feedback about the blog. I'm sorry I haven't posted more interesting things-- I'll try to find one interesting thing each day to tell you about. Really, there are so many things that I take for granted now that were new and interesting when I first arrived here! For example, most of the names of Metro stations are religious in nature. Pan Bendito (Blessed Bread), San Francisco (Saint Francis), Principe Pio (Pious Prince), and Puerta del Angel (Angel's Door) are just a few examples.

About the weekend of Valentine’s Day.... I was kind of sick in the week leading up to it. My senora was sick, so I think that already my roommates and I were susceptible, but then Emily and I ate some 1 euro spreadable cheese from the SuperSol supermarket. UGH. BAD IDEA. I can't even THINK about spreadable cheese without being in danger of becoming violently ill. For those of you who are coming to visit: for the love of God stay away from 1 euro cheese.

Fortunately, that Friday my co-teacher for ESL, Iris, and I went to an intercambio (language exchange). I thought it might be a formal sitting-at-tables-and-talking-in-different-languages thing, but it was just an awesome bar with a lot of people totally open to speaking multiple languages! Additionally, since it was Carnival (aka Mardi Gras), all of Madrid was going crazy! It's like their Halloween, so people were dressed in the strangest outfits. I had so much fun just hanging out with my students (who are all between the ages of like, 20 and 40) that I think Iris and I are going to plan something for this weekend too!

The rest of the weekend was kind of low key. On Saturday night, I hung out with some NYU guys that I met on Friday while Tracy and Emily took Tracy's brother to Kapital, the SEVEN STOREY discoteca. I hear that the karaoke there is quite awesome :)

Last weekend I went to Greece, so I PROMISE an update soon. It was an.... interesting... trip. We got back to Madrid on Tuesday, and then I had four midterms in the past two days. I'm staying in Madrid this weekend to relax, but of course "relaxing" means going to a new Chinese restaurant, going shopping, hitting up a few bars we just discovered, and going out for tapas!!!