Nov 24th - Nov 30th

Where to start, that is the question? Well, I guess I am on some sort of good luck streak here lately. I thought I was going to get credit for taking Management here, but the class that I was in was not the right one. Apparently I had dropped the correct one at the beginning of the year. Or so I thought! After talking to my adviser at ASU she told me that I needed the class that I had had so I was bummed out, but I kept seeing it appear on my school web-page as if I were still enrolled. On Thursday I went to the international students office and asked if I was stilled enrolled, and they reassured me that I was and that I would have to take the final exam for the class in January, Bummer NOT!!! The first good thing that has come from the crazy procrastination and lack of organization in the international students office, they did not process the paperwork to drop me from the class! I spoke with the teacher and explained the confusion to him, so he is letting me do the practical work that I missed and told me that should I have any trouble catching up to just ask him questions an turn the work in anytime before January...AWESOME. Apart from that school is still picking up steam. I have agroup project with the first year students in my Essentials of Business class, and it is like pulling teeth trying them to do anything. Too add insult to injury, I had to go to that class and meet with my class mates on Thanksgiving, I am mean come on, make me come to class on Thanksgiving, Ridiculous.

Aside from school on Thanksgiving last week was great. I had my dutch friend's Ries and Charlotte over for dinner on Wednesday night. It was nice to have some younger people over to the apartment and chat and hang out. They were really surprised when I told them that I was not going to do anything for Thanksgiving, so they invited me to their house for Thanksgiving dinner, even though they had never celebrated. I was totally thrilled. I got back from school late Thursday night and went over for the mystery dinner, I was not sure what they were going to prepare, or if they even knew how to cook! I was relieved to be treated to a wonderful dinner. There was some festive music playing, and a laptop on the living room table with a movie of a fireplace burning, damn did they out do themselves. They had made an appetizer of baguettes with sliced turkey lunch meat, cheese and pesto on it so we could have some turkey on Thanksgiving, and Ries made chicken enchiladas and a green salad for dinner. To top it all off, that night we all went out to the nightclub, JOY, that all international students go out to on Thursday nights. Turkey, chicken enchiladas, good company and dancing, for having Thanksgiving away from the family, it could not have been much better.

Friday was a relaxing day, I was supposed to have a group meeting at campus, which is about 45 min from home but it was canceled so I slept in. That afternoon Marc called me and told me that we were going to meet up to go out to dinner and a club with some friends that night. It is always fun to hang with this group, usually Marc, Ismael, Javier and I. Marc was not able to duck out of work early so Javier, Ismael and I met up in Plaza de Espana first had a drink and then went to meet up with the rest of the group. Earlier in the day, I saw on the news that they had just lit up all the Christmas lights throughout the city, so instead of taking the metro to meet up with the guy, I had a nice walk through Sol and took in the sites (pictures are up on my picasa web album, you can find a link to the right hand side of the post on my blog). We were all supposed to go to a favorite tapas bar called La Llama, but apparently Joaquin, another friend of Marc and Javier's didn't make the reservation in time, so we ended up going to an Italian restaurant chain similar to an Olive Garden, wasn't great but again, good company made it a good time. Apparently the disco that we went to was putting on some sort of fundraiser for a college that Joaquin's friend goes too, it wasn't the greatest but we enjoyed ourselves the same.

Saturday was another relaxing day. Ries and Charlotte were going to a mall that is outside of Madrid and invited me to go with them. Not usually on my top 20 things to do, hanging out at malls shopping, but it was cool because it was in a different area of the city and on the bus ride there I got to see some sights I hadn't seen before such as the leaning towers at Plaza Castilla. We got home late from this shopping adventure and instead of going out again I decided to call it a night so I would be able to wake up and study some on Sunday. Good news, I was successful in getting some reading and studying done on Sunday. I read a few chapters of my Macro Economics text and look over PowerPoint presentations for a few of my other classes as refreshers. Sunday Night I went back over to Ries' house to watch the Real-Madird vs Barcleona match. Unfortunately it was kind of boring and did not live up to the competition that it usually brings out. Madrillenos were especially not happy with the 1-0 Barcleona victory!

Well that is all for now. It was hard to crank this post out,burning out...NOPE, won't let it happen. Hope you all enjoyed the holiday weekend as much as I did and are doing well

Much Love,

Phil