Yesterday evening, after shopping las rebajas and touring El Parque del Buen Retiro, I waited for Dejan and Elena to come to the hostel. I ended up waiting about 2 hours..with the Metro still down, they had to take the train and a bus to get to the center of the city. After we met, Elena wanted to introduce him to tapas y canas, so we went to a restaurant (Cerverceria Cien Monataditos--actually referred to me in my Lonely Planet: Spain book for good tapas) with more of Elena's friends.
Today, Dejan (Slovenia) and I met up with Veronika (Slovakia) at the Atocha train station (where the bombing was in 2005), and another pharmacy student from Alcala, Carlos, drove us to Alcala de Henares. The size of my luggage seemed to be a big topic of conversation. I really tried not to pack too much, but I overpack for a just weekend trip, how could I not overpack for traveling (in Europe) for more than a month? Oh well, if I need to send packages home, I will. We arrived in Alcala after about 30 minutes of driving from Madrid, and explored the city just a little bit. We tried two different tapas places...two of only too many count that I hope to try in the next month. Then we met some more roommates--two from Poland (a couple with a room next to mine---lets hope that doesn't get awkward) and a guy from Serbia. We have two more coming shortly, but in combination with Elena (originally from Bulgaria), I suddenly feel the need to brush up on my Eastern European geography and history. All of them speak English though, which is a blessing and a curse. I spent almost the entire day speaking in English, and because I feel I am understanding more and more Spanish every day, it may have been a set back. I will go to my pharmacy tomorrow to meet everyone, which will hopefully be the place where I will hear the most Spanish. Elena and Carlos have said they will speak only in Spanish to me, but that only lasts a few minutes. It is a bit rude to be speaking a language that everyone around you doesn't understand, when you could be speaking one that they do.
The house where we are staying is great. There are ten beds total, and nine students will be staying here (I think). I'm lucky to have a private room upstairs (whyyyy always upstairs? and on that note, I'm pretty sure I've done serious damage to my right foot from being on it constantly in the past week). The main room downstairs is air conditioned (but alas, my room is still extremely stuffy), there is a huge kitchen, a terrace, and plenty of things on campus to keep us busy. Carlos, who did his year of Erasmus (within the European Union, all students study for free, and Erasmus is one year studying in any other EU country for free as well) in Malta with lots of Americans, has already decided the fate of our dining room table---beer pong. What with beer pong and country roads being played in a Starbucks in the middle of Madrid, I feel right at home (almost....but not quite.)
*Just a note, if you think my writing skills are slipping, its probably not a coincidence. While trying to speak another language does take its toll on your native language speaking abilities, attempting to speak English that people from 6 other countries will understand does a lot more damage. You find yourself using phrases and words you've never used before at a very slow pace. Whether I need to or not, I'm not sure, but its just natural. You should see how long it takes me to proofread these.....
