I had, what can only be called, a fabulous weekend.

Thursday night started off with a group of friends going out to dinner at the Pizza Jardin (Pizza Garden). While this may sound lame...it wasn't. The inside is like a huge warehouse and everything is silver, with giant discoballs. My friend Greg who discovered this place initially thought it was a discoteca. The food was a spanish twist on Italian - nothing too amazing, but all in all a good night. I love going out to dinner pretty much anywhere - this may be a hard habit to break when I go home.

Friday my program took a trip to Toledo, which I talked about in the previous post. And Friday night we hit up a bar called Patatus. It's a big, wooden, rustic, sporty, smokey bar with tons of twenty-something spanish people packed together. After making our way to the bar, shedding about three layers, and creating a little circle we had a good time. The best part was their patatas - we bought a big plate of fries for 4 euro. That's very cheap. Drinks were cheap too. New hangout? Es possible.

On Saturday morning after waking up at 8 am voluntarily I realized that I hadn't slept in (as in past 8 or 9) since October 19th. I promptly rolled over and slept until noon.

After such a refreshing sleep, I felt energized and made my way over to the Sorolla museum a couple blocks from my house. Joaquin Sorolla is basically Spain's version of an impressionist painter who lived at the beginning of the twentieth century. His work, although fluffy, is really beautiful. He was quite rich and they kept his large house intact and created a museum out of it. It's an intimate museum that showcases both his work and decorating sense. I recommend it to anyone who comes to Madrid. It's not as intimidating as the Prado and a LOT more welcoming than the sometimes creepy Reina Sofia.

Niñas en el mar 1909 (I'm writing my paper on this painting)

Saturday night was fun because we hung out with a group of Spanish kids at a hole-in-the-wall German bar. This may sound silly, but I haven't met many madrileños (besides my host family). I knew before coming here that it is difficult to make friends with spanish peers. They often have the same friends from childhood on and get used to international students coming and going; it's not necessarily exciting for them to meet americans because there are so many around each year. That being said, hopefully we can hang out with the group again this week!!!

Sunday was a good day as well. It began with Emily, Anna, and I going to the Rastro and filming a video for a class. It's pretty ridiculous, as all school videos tend to be. I'm pretty sure I swear a couple of times and burst out laughing at random.

Thanks to one of the strongest cafes con leche I've ever had, I didn't get tired all day, so Emily and I went to an Atlético Madrid soccer game. Atleti is one of two professional teams in Madrid the other being David Beckham's former team (and the arguably more popular team) Real Madrid. I'm glad we saw Atlético Madrid play, they have really cool red and white striped jerseys with blue shorts. They won 4-1 against a team from ... somewhere. We sat pretty high up, but I really don't think there are any bad seats in the stadium. You can see the field clearly from all over. One thing Emily noticed was that no one was eating or drinking in the stadium. That is SO spanish. For them, food is taken sitting down at home or in a restaurant, not in public. There is no grab and go. No eating in class or in the metro. (I actually like the no eating in class rule. Last year in orgo I saw a girl pull out hot soup....and a spoon. That's just weird.) I'm getting off topic - to summarize soccer in europe > soccer at home.

WooHoo good weekend.

And you probably don't care about this (except you mom and dad) but I registered for spring classes last week and I am taking: Analytical Chemistry, Calculus III, Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Crises in Africa, Special Topics in Global Health, Latin American civilization, and Chem Research (hopefully, finger's crossed about this one). I'm excited about the Africa class, especially. I also found out that my advisor will be on sabbatical next semester :(. Should be an interesting semester...