The Westin Palace, Madrid

... I managed to get to the gym before going out to dinner for Alicia's Birthday. She wanted Thai food so we went to a Thai restaurant that was delicious. I got chicken with cashews and rice. It was really good. Then the girls had everyone over for cake to celebrate. My wanting to go to bed early didn't really happen because I didn't get to bed until midnight. But the weekend was fun and I will be needing a siesta very soon.<br><br>Today, we had orientation for our classes which ...

... had a glass of peach and grape juice. Then we all got ready to go out. We hit up the ATM, and Rebeca got some caffeine from Starbucks.<br><br>We first walked around the cathedral. While there, we noticed some official procession going into the cathedral. There were people in military uniforms with guns and musical instruments marching into the cathedral, it was pretty cool. People then rushed in after them. We figured that the place ...

well, my first blog, check me out and i´m glad that i did it now and didn´t wait to arrive in some random hostel with a queue behind me as i have just spent the last 15 mins trying to actually enter text into this box, and i am supposed to be good at these things!! bleeding internet why do they always have to have different ways of doing things for every site that you go on, I'm all for the freedom of doing exactly what you what, which for me is the internet is the ...

... because my seat had a wall where your feet are supposed to go. Ouch! Lamento Boliviano/Lamento Americano (quickly becoming my latest theme song) greeted me as I got of the bus in Barcelona this morning. I sat down with a pastry and a cup of coffee to relax, re-orient and re-organize before heading off to find my hostel. Many people had warned me about the epidemic pick-pocketing in Barcelona so I was borderline paranoid as soon as I hit Estacion Norde. I put my ...

... tour instead. We're also going to try to get tickets for the bullfight tomorrow. Only they kill the bull at the end, I don't know why. But it's so popular in Spain, you have to go if you can. We'll see. Cool thing about the hotel. The escalators have a sensor, so they start only when you step on the platform. Pretty neat. Basically, just played cards tonight, took an hour to dry our hair because my dryer keeps blowing a fuse and the hotel's is really bad.

... laundry grab some groceries in Madrid. Leaving Madrid the scenery was nice. Within minutes we were in a country side of golden straw and farms of redish earth with pink and yellow hues. There were fields of sunflowers, a week past their prime and some awesome mountains of stone. The passing storm made it even more dramatic with the multicolored sky and the now dark brown creeks and rivers ...

... and late to everything...but yes there is a but....the girl that lost her own house twice in Mexico...guided her housemate home that night using the metro like a true spanard! I know, God was most definately involved. He took over my directionally impared mind and I have almost mastered the metro already. Prayer works. After our tour yesturday we went to a cafe for tapas and sangria with some spanards and then margarat told us to find our way home. Ya ...

... are pretty mellow. I will start my first teaching job in about two weeks. It´s only three hours a week though so I´ll need to pick up something else as well. But not paying for rent or food has got me real relaxed on the whole employment search. Especially after Javier, the oldest son of my family, showed me how to put the language on the T.V. to English, when available. I´ve been ...