Day 1: Day Drinking Never Ends Well
I arrived at the airport and couldn't find a person with an American University sign, so I went to a cafeteria and bought a bottle of wine (Drink count:1). Eventually I found a host and she shipped me in a taxi to the hotel, where I saw a familiar face and some new ones. We went to find the perfect lunch place, then got lazy and ended up at a place called "Restaurante" where I got a sandwich and what seems to be the cheap beer of choice here, Mahou (DC: 2)
We met up with other people in our program, and found the greatest bar so far: Oktoberfest. Since I don't think I'll be able to go to the real thing, this is almost as great of an option! They offer 3 liter beers there, but I wimped out and got smaller ones (DC:4). We then decided to buy the equivalent of 40s here of the shittastic Mahou, and play kings to get to know each other. But then we got bored, so we went back to Oktoberfest (DC: ???).
The program was supposed to start at 7:30, a solid 9 hours after we had all arrived at the hotel. After a minor hiccup where a drunk girl got lost after Oktoberfest, we actually went into Madrid. And I must say, it is GORGEOUS. We didn't see many sights because a. it was nighttime and most of the places were closed b. we were all drunk, starving, and exhausted from hours of traveling. But we did see the Royal palace, and some of the main plazas! We eventually got dinner, which was fantastic until I had one bite of the fairly rare steak and vomited. Embarrassing first night. I won't go into more detail.
Day 2: I Hope My Senora Doesn't Judge Me
So after a fairly eventful night, we woke up bright and early to meet our homestay families! My senora is pretty great, and a really good cook which is what I'm looking forward to. I live in a room that's essentially a closet, but it has wifi and a big closet so I'll be ok. All I really did today was eat and sleep.
Oh! We went to a handball game, which from what we could barely tell was like soccer except with more touching. The game was Madrid vs. Barcelona, and I think it was the championship match, because there was an awards ceremony at the end. I enjoyed watching the fans more than the game; they were singing so many different songs and were just so into it that I was very impressed.
Dinner here is always an ordeal. There are no less than 5 courses, and they keep on giving you wine. It's the greatest.
Tomorrow's my birthday, so looking forward to that!
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