Viva Hosteles!

So at long last I've finally mustered up the will power to start a blog. My general disposition on these things would lead one to believe that I'd never start one, but I've enjoyed Schufreider's accounts and I figure at least it's one way to avoid being asked over and over again how my trip is going, have you found a place to live, how's the food, how's my Spanish, etc. So i suppose I'll start by answering that first question: How's my trip going? So far I have virtually no complaints about the Spanish lifestyle. The tapas phenomenon should be adopted globally. There really is nothing better than ordering a drink and watching the bartender fix up a plate of chorizo, tortilla espanola, or shrimp to go along with your cerveza. Naps here are not only acceptable, theyre nationally revered. Nearly every shop is closed from 2-5 Pm. My class schedule skips from 2 to 4, clearly implying it would be ludicrous to even think of scheduling a class during siesta. 22% unemployment? I wonder why. Public transportation is very good. The Metro is incredibly user friendly and very clean, though i guess I'll always prefer the El for the nostalgia and ridiculous stories. A combination of walking and public transportation is how most Spaniards get around. The traffic system doesn't make much sense. It's an orgy of roundabouts and poorly placed fountains and gardens. Needless to say I've had more than my fair share of close encounters with the front bumpers of smart cars. All in all, I'm pretty excited I'll be spending the next four months in this city.

Have I found a place to live? In short, yes. In long, o sweet Jesus I finally have an apartment. Im living in a pretty decent apartment with a great location and reasonable rent, but my voyage to this point has been rocky to say the least. After hopping off the plane and lugging my bags onto the Metro, I though the hard part was over. Sure, staying in a hostel a few days and finding a place to live would be no problem. That said, I'd like to take this opportunity to tell everyone in the States to appreciate the coherent system of addresses that you take for granted everyday. In Madrid, the two different sides of the street are numerically independent of one another (i.e 4 Monteleon and 104 Monteleon could be right across the street from one other). Also, business may or may not have addresses. So between 18 and 19 on a street there may be four or five places you think should have addresses that don't. Essentially, what I'm trying to say is I got horribly lost with my 50 odd pounds of luggage in the heart of the city. So naturally I began to complain loudly, cursing the EU and emphasizing my desire for a cheeseburger. Julie, who helped me through most of the airport confusion, is a saint for putting up with my adolescent tirade. Well finally I found it and moved my things in. The place was 12 euro a night and with good reason. The average prison cell is bigger than the rooms there and the rooms were shared between four. O well, I'd only be there for a couple days. Ha. I was there for six without seeing anything that looked remotely like an appealing apartment. And six was the limit. So I had to pack up all my stuff and move to a hostel that was quite a hike from my first one. This hostel was definitely cooler than the last for several reasons. The first being the area. It's located on one of those cliche European streets, where the buildings hug the edges of the street and you can't discern the sidewalk from the road (pictures of them are all over facebook, particularly in the albums of people who consider themselves rogue spirits). There was a nice little seafood market next door and a fruit market across the street. They also offered wifi, which saved me from the internet cafe and those terrible European keyboards. This hostel was alot more fun. Most nights one group of foreigners or another would make sangria and we'd hang out and watch soccer, after which I'd go and meet with the Marquette kids from Complutense University. After spending a grand total of nine days at this hostel I finally found a place to rent with a little more permanence and although I'm glad I lived the hostel life for a while, it's nice not to have to lock my stuff when i leave the room.

So I suppose this was my first blog post, very general and probably uninteresting, but I hope to start writing with a little more frequency and start updating it with more specific exploits. Stay tuned. Adios