Always Changing

Okay so i will be working backwards here...since i uploaded photos wrong and it's a hassle to redo it. So...I will begin with the near future. Tuesday (tomorrow) my beloved exchange student friends will be coming to my house...the 3 of us girls will be preparing my family a "typical" american dinner. This means Mac and Cheese, Salad with ranch dressing and croutons, some tuna melts, then we're making a cake. I think they'll enjoy it. The main purpose of the meal is to get ready for what lays ahead...the election. Because of the time difference we will be staying up all night in order to watch the elections live. All of it. The way we plan on staying up...playing risk. =D Wednesday we are taking a personal holiday to catch up on sleep. (I'm sure everybody will understand) 

Today school was quite different for me...i didn't have any tutor classes. none. As of today one of my Spanish tutors was transfered to a new school (i found out about this the last 5 minutes of class on thursday) quite a surprise but i was thinking that i would still have at least a couple a week with my other tutor...turns out that all his classes would be changing around. I saved myself the confusion this morning and instead of trying to figure out if i could even have tutor classes anymore i just went to Latin...then English....and tomorrow I will be starting with Spanish Literature. Its funny to see how many students that i have been around since day one just are really starting to warm up to me....now that they have witnessed my skills in the English language. haha....i dont mind helping but i do explain what i am teaching them. Its like some of them are realizing that I'm not mute. It is quite a change. I am becoming closer and closer to a few girls at school. they are really sweet to me, and during some classes we do our own side lessons where we write something and then the other will usually be able to translate it into the other language. I have actually learned quite a lot with this technique. 

This weekend was a long weekend....why you may ask...Halloween!!! Now technically this isn't a Spanish holiday, but i have come to the conclusion that the Spaniards will steal any other country's holiday in order to have another reason to party. The last half of this weekend I didnt do much, slept and relaxed mostly because thursday and friday were quite draining. Friday, Halloween, me and the other exchangees were on a mission, find pumpkins. We did, at El Corte Ingles, this is like a target, but MORE. It has a supermarket, sells cars, houses, vacations, and it even has a winter wonderland on the top floor with everything to do with christmas, even though its only november. And it was the only place with pumpkins, little, yet still able to carve. We met our friends in a park and began to carve. We didn't get the reaction we thought, they were actually quite disgusted by the pumpkin guts and our joy of sticking our hands in it and cutting away. They warmed up to them once the candles were put in, but then quickly realized they would have more fun blowing them up rather than just looking. Emily and I were the only ones able to hold onto ours all night...they got some weird looks on the metro, but are now safely on my doorstep. The cheerful pumpkins got a different reaction when Emily and I went to University City where my brothers friends were...Suarez said "This is such an amazing moment for me, I have never seen one of these in real life....you don't know how special this is"..It was unanimous, the pumpkins were a much bigger hit with the older crowd. They really thought we had a special talent. I'm glad we got to share that tradition with them.  

 Me with Laura, she was one not so appreciative of the pumpkin tradition. 
Paloma, Paco, Yuste, Damon
Me Emily and Vin
Miguel, Laura, Kelly, Emily, and Vin sitting on some cement, not knowing what to do but be cold.
Making the faces of our pumpkins

Then there was Thursday....Thursday was much anticipated...it was Kelly's 18th birthday. We had all been planning to go to Kapital (a discoteca), for a couple weeks at that point. Dresses had been bought, along with accessories, shoes, everything. We started out the night in a park, like always, we were a little over dressed, but it was also our friend Robyn's last night in Madrid. The park we went to was the place of a party for Robyn's class at school. There were a ton of people. After this we made our way to a cafe and ate bacon and cheese sandwiches. After this we headed to Kapital. We weren't sure at first if we'd get in...they are pretty strict on dress code, appearance, all that. We ended up getting in and setting our stuff down (bad idea). we went dancing....it was alright....really not all it was built up to be. There were dancers in american flag bikinis and half of a football uniform, there were smoke machines and flashing lights, there were also only people there 25 and older and apparently thieves as well. I was robbed, along with my friend Robyn. Her wallet that was in my purse, along with my camera and ipod touch, were all taken, not the whole purse just those 3 things. That really put the icing on the cake. We had to leave then because Robyn needed to call home to cancel her credit cards, and we ended up calling it a night. After this i gave directions to my house to a taxi driver in spanish....I was pretty proud i remembered how to get home from Madrid (it is about a 30 minute drive) and there are many ways you can get there. I don't have any pictures from this night because of previously stated reasons. Good thing i download my photos every day, or else more could have been lost. (I've already purchased a new camera...you can see that by the photos on halloween)

 

THE WEEKEND BEFORE THAT: 

We tried getting into a discoteca before they make you start paying (1:30), we didnt make it, and a lot of us didnt have money so we entertained ourselves in the park:

 This is all of us actually naturally laughing =D
Me and Paloma: that night her purse was stolen, it happens to everybody, not just tourists. 
Waiting in line for the discoteca
Me, Manu (birthday boy) and my brother Christian

My friends from school and I went bowling and played pool. It was extremely expensive for each of us to play one game of bowling..just one...was 5.50 euros. 7 dollars....so this place makes $21 dollars off of one game of 3 people. Crazy. But it was well worth it because i actually won!! it was my first time ever being the winner of bowling. and we didnt even have the bumpers up!

Me and Lorena (lore), she was my first friend at school.