September 15th-21st

I promise this one will not be as long! Well, the first week of classes went really well. I found out that I will get more credits than I expected and my classes are all very interesting. What do you know I am already sick of talking about school, not much is new in this area!

Now to the good stuff, yet another week full of events. Thursday night is the night that all of the Erasmus students go out to kick off the weekend. I went out for a little bit but it was really cold and I was tired so I ended up coming home around 3:00, which is an extremely early night! Friday, I did not have classes so I did all the boring stuff that I needed to do around the house: laundry, unpack!, reorganize my room, etc. In the evening I met Marc at his house and then we met up with some his friends at a restaurant near by for dinner. After dinner we all went to a little town called Majadahonda to the town party Friday was the first night of the two week festival. I was only planning to stay for a few hours because I had to be at the train station at 10:00 a.m. to go to Toledo to watch the Vuelta de España, but one thing lead to another and we danced the night away until a mere 5:30! Once we all decided to leave, the adventure started. Majadahonda is in between Madrid and Las Rozas were Marc and his friends live. I didn’t want to be a burden so I decided to take the night bus home! I waited for about 30 minutes and finally one arrived. It was a mad dash to beat the other 60+ people that were waiting to get a ride back to Madrid! I made it on, and made it to Madrid safely, packed in the sweaty bus like sardines! Of course the bus dropped me off on the other side of Madrid, not the one that I live on! I started walking, and made it about half way before the Metro began running...I caught the first Metro of the morning, and ended up making it home right about 6:30a.m.

I’ll tell you what (Insert Hank Hill accent!) a 9:00a.m. alarm was not what I wanted to hear after only 2 hours or so of sleep! I barely made it to the train station on time to meet my German friend Timon, and we were on our way to Toledo...the high speed train only takes 30 minutes to get there. We toured all over the city taking many pictures (thanks for the new camera Mom & Dad!) until about 2:00 when the race began. We found a great spot to watch on top of an old wall where we could dangle our legs over and watch the riders sprint up the last hill and finish. It was a time trial, so all the riders came one by one, or occasionally you would have a rider that caught another and the crowd would erupt cheering them on to the finish. The atmosphere was electric when the final rider, Valverde, passed by. He is a Spaniard that ended up winning the overall classification. After the race, while walking back to the train station I ran into Carlos Sastre, the 2008 winner of the Tour de France...photos to come! All, in all the race was a great time and the city was absolutely breathe taking.

Saturday night on little to no sleep I went out again with a few friends. I would have loved to have just gone to sleep but once a year there is La Noche en Blanco, where Madrid is alive all night with art exhibitions, street performers and musicians entertaining the people. It was a lot of fun to walk all over the city and take in the sights and people. I lasted till about 2:30, and called it a night!

Sunday was relaxing, checked my email, went the bakery for some bread, showed my new roommate Charles around, he is from Cameroon...he just arrived on Thursday. In the evening we went again to the bull fight, this time armed with a camera. It was absolutely spectacular...if a fighter does an excellent job the president of the Plaza de Torros will waive one, two or three white flags signifying the reward he shall receive. If one flag is waived the fighter gets an Ear. If two flags are waived the fighter gets both ears, and if three are waived it is my understanding that the fighter gets both ears, the tail, and is carried out of the stadium to the cheers of the arena! It is extremely rare for a fighter two get two, much less, three white flags. On this night we witnessed a kid (must have been no older than 18) receive a white flag from the president... the ear was immediately cut off the bull and given to him. He then marched around the arena and was given tons of love from the crowd...WHAT A SIGHT!!!

Well that’s about it folks, I am off to class...I hope all is well with everyone back home, and once I download the pictures from my camera somewhere I will be sure to share them.

Much Love Always,

Phil