Día típico

Step 1: I wake up and take a quick shower, of course only using water when I absolutely am needing it to rinse off, in the European style, and all the other moments showering without the water on. Then I quickly get changed and eat some breakfast...usually a café con leche and dos galletas (not the cookies you would think of in the USA, different) with some strawberry mermelada and maybe a piece of tostada(again, not American toast, much smaller and premade sort of so there isn´t really butter on it, it is small piece of hard, crisped but not burned, bread that I have come to love. And if I am on the run, I just grab a banana and eat it like a NewYorker on the way to the metro. Most people in Spain actually sit down and eat a breakfast in the morning so I look wierd running with a banana in my mouth. Therefore, if I can I avoid this.

Step 2 is the metro. This can be tricky. It is easy to navigate and use, but in the morning, around the afternoon siesta/lunch break, and again in the evening; this whole process becomes a jungle. There are full out security gaurds yelling at us and telling us where to go (in as nice a way as they can of course) and people shoving an pulling all sorts of tricks and manuvuers to get that coveted spot on the left hand side of the escalator (the fast lane). There are so many people in thier suits, school uniforms, ect running, jumping, and squezing themselves strategically to get out to the open air. My stop for school now is un lío. We are deep in the earth and need 3 sets of pasamanos (escalators), or maybe its 4, to reach the open air. Now, metros also have different bocas. This means to say that there are several different exits from the station that go to different streets. Some have as many as 6 or so, so it is imperative to pay attention and push to your boca. At this point, the crowd is pretty much dispersed to where they need to go. Step 3 is traffic and crossing the busy roads. After that is achieved I have a one or two block walk to school on which I pass my favorite bookstore that sells foreign books. I have already boughten a Spanish to Italian book and a Spanish to French traveling book. There will be many more purchases to come too. I have also purchased some Spanish books at open air street vendors´stands. Next, getting to work takes longer than school. I am in a cutoff barrio in the South of Madrid; there is only one metro in and out. After I get off at my boca I have a 3 block walk or so. My interview went well I suppose because I have the job! I am anxiously waiting to see what my new job will have in store for me.

Al momento I have just finished dinner, it is 22:10 here, or 10:10pm. And I think I am going out for a night on the town with a few roommates. This is after I have some time to read the book I am reading now, La casa de los espíritus por Isabel Allende.

And then I wake up at 7:30am and repeat the process. I don´t know what I would do without my café con leche to get me going in the morning. I have come into the bad habit of drinking as many as 3 cups a day. I drink one at breakfast, 1 at second breakfast around 11:30am and then another in the afternoon if I don´t get my precious siesta.

P.S. I hope Natalie Kozlowski feels better. I am so sorry about your dog!! We should Skype sometime xoxo
Reading in a plaza near downtown