The Metro and Nadal

So this past weekend I gained another freedom...well actually thousands within one. I learned the metro. It is a wonderful thing. Color coded and relatively easy... everyday there is so much that i learn besides the big one...Spanish. Which I'm having a big breakthrough with. I am able to understand so much more now...that is if I haven't just woken up, then I'm like a fish out of water. Also I'm able to respond sometimes without thinking beforehand and other times i'm able to participate in longer conversations. It's a really good feeling.

So, Friday, I waited for my host brother to return home to give me a ride to Madrid instead he gave me a metro map, the bus number and sent me on my way. I was a little nervous, but didn't want anybody to know that so i was able to hide that pretty well. I go there with no hassle, only a few well avoided confusions...i had to backtrack a couple times so there were a couple more escalators i had to ride. I found Evan, another exchange student, at my destination and we began our journey to find the others. They ended up walking to find us and then we made the trek back to the park where everybody was. There were a ton of people from Robyn's *exchange student* school. They were SO welcoming and we all had a really fun time. We made our way back to Emily's (the exchange student staying at Carlota's) house around 3am after meeting up with her older sister. Then we slept. The picture below is of me and Kelly, exchangee from Vermont, in the park. She lives in Madrid.  

The next day it was raining...a little...more like sprinkling for us anacortes inhabitants. We made our way to the country...it was beautiful, natural beauty for the first time in quite awhile. We were heading to Emily's family friends vineyard. Once arriving i was pleased to see my first campfire in a month! They made homemade sangria and paella and marinated green olives. Before filling us with good food and drink we helped harvest the grapes...thats when it decided to actually start raining. It was such a great experience especially since i have thought about going into the winemaking business in my future. Then we ate and talked, the things that spaniards exceed at. I was dropped off at Goya, a stop at the metro, and with no minutes on my cell phone and only a metro map I made it home!! I felt so accomplished....i felt like i could do anything. haha. That night i witnessed my first thunderstorm in Spain. It was beautiful and right outside my window. The skies were purple and the rain put me to sleep. 

The olives grown where we picked grapes...so delicious!

Me and Emily at the Vineyard

Me...it was SO windy

The next day i got up way too early for all I'd done that weekend. But i was off to hang out for the first time with people from school. We were going to casa de campo...a huge sports complex in Madrid. I thought we were going to watch tennis, and yes there was plenty of tennis there, but the whole weekend of tennis was centered around one ceremony to officially name Rafa Nadal as the #1 tennis player in the world. It was a beautiful ceremony...very patriotic. Also, at the casa de campo there was business showcase for everything to do with tennis and more. After that my friend Ruso and i went into Madrid to play pool...I beat him 3 times haha. and hurt his pride a bit too. After that i found my way home alone again!! Twice in one weekend! 

Cris, Ruso and IRafa Nadal receiving his trophy

I was extremely exhausted on Monday and just wanted to get home from school and sleep but i guess that wasn't in the cards for me....see I just received my set of keys today so I didn't exactly have them yesterday when I got home and nobody was there...I ended up waiting 3 hours! and then I realized i could get in one window if i carried one of the wrought iron chairs from the backyard. I ended up doing that and my family and I had some good laughs about it that night especially when they were blaming Sapi for it all because he was the last one to leave the house and he didnt leave one of the side doors open for me. It was when i had one of my total breakthroughs with the language...I was IN the conversation at dinner, like just as much a part of the conversing as everybody else. SO COOL! haha. Anyways I'll try to update again soon. loooove.