Slowly but surely

It´s only been three days since the last update, and yet there´s so much to say. I´ll try my best to keep this short, but I´m not making any promises. Thankfully, I´m in the library at school, so I don´t have that irritating prepaid clock on the screen counting down every precious second of internet time, like at the internet cafe.

Monday, the day of all the post-holiday ¨rebajas¨or sales, was basically like Black Friday. I went to run errands at the Corte Ingles, (Imagine Macy´s, Target, Best Buy and Giant rolled into one gigantic, multi-floor, multi-building store, and you´ve got El Corte Ingles.) I wandered for more than an hour through the grocery store, and, in what became basically the happiest moment of my day, I found frozen packets of Patak´s Chicken Tikka Masala with naan and rice. Things went downhill from there when I had nothing to do and felt more and more alone. The low point came when I felt my eyes welling up and I had to rush to a bathroom to avoid crying my eyes out in front of the hordes of shoppers.

Ten minutes later, having recovered, I left and walked around outside some more. When I had enough of that, I went back to the apartment and took a nap. Thankfully I had bought an international calling card, and was counting down the hours until I could call home. Although I kept telling myself that everything would be okay and I´d make friends at school tomorrow, I´d be lying if I said I didn´t also feel like hopping on the next plane headed anywhere in the United States.

Yesterday we had to report to school for our placement test. On my way to school, I found a group of Americans here through a program provider. I can´t even explain how elated I was to hear all that English. I´m also really glad I found them because they had a guide take them to the university, which, even with my directions, I never would have found on my own. As we walked, I was talking to a guy from Long Island, and it was just such a relief being able to talk without thinking again.

The placement test had three parts, verb conjugation, a short oral evaluation and 100 multiple choice questions testing grammar and vocab. It wasn´t that bad; I already know where my weaknesses in Spanish lie. After the test, we had a break and then orientation. I met a couple other girls from the program, and we chatted and exchanged numbers while waiting. After the orientation, I began chatting with another girl, Anastasia, from Moscow. She´s here only for the month of January, but is studying to become a Spanish teacher in a Russian university. We had lunch at the cafeteria and then headed out to explore.

Having stuck to the streets around my apartment so as not to get lost, I hadn´t yet seen any of the city´s famous landmarks. Anastasia and I meandered our way through the streets to the Plaza de España and the Palacio Real. From there, we rested for a few minutes at this quiet little terrace near a bridge. The sun´s rays were shining through the bridge, and wooden bench was stamped with Madrid´s symbol of a bear and a tree. We then headed up the curving streets toward the Plaza Mayor.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, we were only speaking Spanish with each other. As I was walking the streets, with this girl from another country speaking another language, I realized that I had gotten exactly what I was looking for. I felt, for those few hours, like a true Madrileño, andando por los calles, hablando español (strolling through the streets speaking spanish).

Anastasia knew of a free classical music concert occurring later that evening at a center which I learned was only two streets from my apartment. She wanted to get a salad, so we swung by the McDonald´s (which has free wi-fi!!!!!!!!!) (sorry, internet access excites so much now that I´ve lost regular access to it) across the street before heading to the cultural center for the concert, which featured renditions of Beethoven and others on the piano and cello.

Today we finally started classes, and I placed into the highest intermediate/advanced level, exactly where I thought I would be. Mondays and Wednesdays I start class at 10, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, at 8:30. This intensive course is broken up into three sections, culture, grammar and conversation. The classes are small, and one of the girls I met yesterday, Allie, is in my class. It´s so nice to have everything start to fall into place, and I´m feeling a lot better about this semester than I was 48 hours ago.

Bueno, today the university is taking us to visit Madrid de las Austrias, la zona antigua, the older part of the city. I still miss you all greatly and pictures will come soon!