Study Abroad
Day 5
January 22nd, 2006
6:02 PM

It’s been hard to get used to the schedule around here. Spaniards eat lunch late, eat dinner late, stay out late. It’ll probably take me weeks to really be on “Spain time.” I like my sleep, and I feel like here it’s an afterthought. For instance, right now it should be dinnertime. But we’re not eating for another 2 ½ hours. We went to the supermarket today to get some snacks or something, but I have not seen it open the whole time I’ve been here. What time the stores are open is a complete mystery to me. Nobody appears on the streets until about 7 o’clock at night.

At dinner last night, I sat with some people I hadn’t talked to yet. We talked about how great it was to spend Friday night in Madrid. Most of us are forming plans to travel every weekend, and we’re all coming to the same fact—it’s overwhelming. We’ve got about 12 weekends while we’re here: some of them filled with Fundacion excursions, some not. Plus Semana Santa. And we’ve all got a list about a mile long of places we’d like to visit. Every time someone mentioned a place, the rest of the people at the table would sigh and say “Oh yeah! Greece…I didn’t even think of Greece.” Everything is so much closer here, and it makes sense to take advantage, but we just don’t have enough time.

Last night was fun; we went out for tapas—fries with some kind of goop on them, little fried potato thingys, olives, chorizo. We went to Enebro again, but to the location closer to the Plaza instead of the little one just outside the Fundacion. We got to sit at the outside tables—I’d describe the weather here as April-ish. It’s fantastic.

I got to know a few people I hadn’t met yet, which was lovely. Seth Verteleny was amazed to discover he was hanging out in Spain with Andrew Somers’ sister. There is a girl named Tiffany who, I swear to God, everything she says cracks me up, if only because she begins sentences with “The day I shaved my cat…” and “Your roommate’s name is Seth?!?” I don’t know.

We sat outside giggling until we couldn’t feel our feet, then some of us headed back to the Fundacion and watched “Best of Will Ferrell” until 3 in the morning. Then, the sleeping in. Robin, Danielle and I had plans to buy school supplies, groceries and postcards today, but Sunday afternoon is apparently not the time to run errands. Though we did figure out the most direct route from the Fund to Plaza Zocodover, which was a triumph. Classes=tomorrow.