Okay so I'll write probably three essays about Berlin soon, but in the meantime I thought I should catch up on oh, the last month of my life. When last I wrote of something that wasn't my travels, other than Fuerza Bruta, Brian was still here. And that was the first week of October. So let's see how fast I can tell you all about my life considering I'm obsessed with details.
Okay. Flashback to Wednesday, October 5th. I had class in the early afternoon, but I met up with Brian after for lunch again at Los Rotos. We tried a couple new dishes but of course ordered muerte por chocolate once again. Still perfectly delicious. Back to the apartment for a short nap/rest, then off to the theatre! We went to see a play called Venticinco Años Menos un Día, a play about an English play called The Tea is Ready. It was about the final performance of the play (one day before the 25th anniversary of its opening, hence the title). Because it was about an English play, a lot of it was actually in English, and there were some theatre jokes. I enjoyed it a lot. And we had great seats, for pretty cheap, in a beautiful theatre. And yet another theatre within ten minutes of my apartment! I had actually walked past it before and didn't even know...
After the show we stopped for drinks and snacks at 100 montaditos (the mini-sandwich place) for Wednesday's euromania - where everything on the menu is a euro. I had my usual tinto de verano, Brian had a classic Spanish beer (Mahou), and we both sampled various sandwiches before heading home. In general quite a successful day, I'd say.
Thursday, Brian's last day here. I had class all day so Brian did a bunch of sightseeing on his own and then met me at the Prado, where I have class every Thursday. My class gets over around 5:30 and the Prado is free beginning at 6, so we found each other and did some wandering through the galleries before heading to El Tigre for those famous giant mojitos and some true Spanish tapas, which Brian still hadn't gotten to try. We stopped for ice cream just up the street from me on the way and then headed home for the night a little early to sit around and chat before we both prepared for an early morning trip to the airport. Brian was flying back to China (via a night in Moscow?!) and I to Mallorca, having just booked my flight that morning and my hostel that night thanks to much toil on my mom's part to get my debit card unlocked. (They know I'm abroad, but apparently the card automatically locks if you try to use it for foreign airfare... Secure, but a pain in the ass.)
So up an at 'em, long before the sun, which rose while we were on the bus to the airport, and then you know the whole Mallorca story. :) It was such a bummer to say goodbye to Brian. I was really glad to have the weekend trip to distract me from being by myself once again.
So. Skip ahead to post-Mallorca... Just a typical week at school, I think, trying to get everything done and get some sleep and take in Madrid and whatnot. Hardly left the apartment over the weekend though, actually. Went grocery shopping, which is always an adventure - the closest chain supermarket (where prices are much cheaper) is a 15 minute walk away, so I can't go often. But that means carrying two weeks worth of groceries almost a mile home, which is a whole body workout, since I buy vegetables and that's where I get my less-than-a-euro-1.5-litres of tinto de verano. :) Also did laundry, lots of homework, yoga, cleaning. Productive weekend! AND I got to see Alejandro on Saturday, which was nice because it's hard to only talk via facebook - so much typing - or via skype, because I have a hard enough time understanding Spanish without internet connections causing more trouble.
The following week midterms began. I've never really had serious midterms like this before. I mean, I've had a few in some of my theatre studies classes, but we mostly just write essays about things we've read, maybe define a few theatre terms, no big deal. But I have four academic classes and four midterms this semester. Crazy. The first was my Lorca midterm, which was really easy, as all we had to do was write two essays about the two Lorca plays we'd read up to that point. And as we'd spent multiple weeks on each, there was plenty to write. (In my regular theatre classes, we usually read a couple plays a week and compare them in discussion and it feels like we never have enough time to talk about everything, but such is the pace of Tisch.) I got an A, but I think everyone did, because my teacher thinks grades are stupid.
My other midterms were all the following week, once one of them got moved, so I had three midterms to look forward to post-Paris. Remember in my Paris post how I talked about doing lots of studying for my midterms? Oh, no? Exactly. So Tuesday rolls around, and I have two midterms. For my Spain Today class I had to give an oral presentation of 15 minutes (in Spanish) with two other members of the class, again based on Spanish news articles. I haven't gotten the grade back yet for it, but I felt like it went pretty well. Then Tuesday afternoon I had the midterm for my art history class. This I did some cramming for both Monday night and Tuesday during the lunch break. Fortunately thanks to two years of art recognition tests in high school (hi, Rado), I have some practice studying for this kind of test. I felt like it went pretty well, though I wasn't totally sure... We got them back today though, and I am happy to report that I got an A-, which was a little better than I expected considering my last-minute studying. Though I guess PHTS has made me really good at doing things last minute. SECOND YEAR...
Thursday brought the Spanish grammar midterm, which I kinda refused to study for, as I thought I would just get more confused trying to compare tenses and endings and prepositions and things. My friend Isabella (my closest friend here in Madrid for sure) came over to study though, and I studied a bit by trying to answer her questions. I got that test back yesterday (really not much longer than the quizzes we have every other week, anyway), and I got a happy 88.5, which I'm pretty proud of considering we're trying to learn grammar of a foreign language in that foreign language, which is ridiculously hard.
Thursday evening after Prado Isabella and I went to a cute little cafe around the corner from my house to do some of our homework before we both traveled for the weekend (she to Paris, I to Berlin), and successfully got all our homework done for one of our classes. We read an entire four-page interview in Spanish and only found 25 words we didn't understand, so really we could understand the whole article without using a dictionary. We were quite proud of ourselves.
Thursday night I finally got my abono, which is this card you need to apply for in order to get a monthly travel pass for the bus/metro. I submitted mine on September 21st, meaning it should have been ready while Brian was visiting, but it wasn't. And a week later it still wasn't. And a week later, it still wasn't. It took nearly five weeks, and now I'm only using it for November, but at least I have it for this month. It means I can travel as much as I want on the metro, which is already nice, in just the two days I've been using it. It also means I don't have to pay an extra fare to go to the airport on the bus or train, which is important for all the traveling I'm doing. Woo!
So. The final development of October is a wonderful one - halfway through the month, I got a job! I'm "teaching English" to a family of four kids. I put that in quotes because the oldest two, both girls, Marta, 16 and Iciar, 14, studied in London for a semester last fall, so their English is just fine. The ten-year-old, Nacho, has English in school and speaks quite well. Sometimes I have to repeat what I say, or he'll ask me how to say something in English (a constant test of my Spanish vocabulary, which is good for me), but he's great. He reminds me a lot of my cousin Josh who is the same age and looks quite like him, in addition to being similar in personality. The youngest, Jaime, is 5, and is hilarious. I mostly speak to him in Spanish, and it is certainly a test of my abilities to try to understand him, as he speaks very fast and like a five-year-old. Think about how little kids talk in English, and then try to understand that in a foreign language. Yeah. But he's a lot of fun, and his favorite phrase is "I'm fine thank you" which he says all as one word. He knows the English names of lots of animals and can count at least to 15. We played Simon says last week - his idea, not mine - and he seems to know body parts pretty well too. (Put your hands on your head, point to your nose, raise your right arm, etc.) The boys are both always fighting for my attention. I spend 15 minutes with Jaime, then 45 minutes with each Nacho, Iciar, and Marta. Jaime and I just play games, or I end up chasing him for some reason, Nacho always has something to show me that he made (he's really good at this lego engineering set he has), and I just chat about school and life and whatnot with Iciar and Marta. During which time Nacho always has to come by for some reason. And when I'm with Nacho, Jaime never wants to go away. That's always the time he must also be in the same room doing his homework (he's practicing writing letters of the alphabet).
They also have two dogs, Klaus and Lola. Lola is some kind of terrier, little enough to sit in my lap, which she does pretty constantly. It's quite a crazy house, but I love the family. And every time I come back from a trip, they ask me how it was, or tell me to have a good weekend before I go. Yesterday I mentioned that I ate lots of chocolate in Berlin, and I guess because now they know I like chocolate, my glass of water (because I'm always offered something to drink) was accompanied by three different pieces of chocolate. They spoil me, really. AND I'm getting paid to hang out with their kids and speak English. I'm so lucky. I can't believe it. The dad (also named Alejandro) does something with computers, and they're very well off - and four kids is a lot for a Spanish family - but I still feel a little guilty getting paid to basically just hang out. Not gonna complain though. :)
So. That's my life now! Berlin post soon to come, as well as Paris pictures, of course. The editing process has commenced. ¡Besos desde España!
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