Ok, so here goes noting the TWO WEEK CHRISTMAS BLOG!!! Hopefully I can recollect all of the extraordinary events that have gone on over the past two weeks...BRACE YOURSELVES!
Where did we leave off, class I am guessing, The last week of classes was extremely slow, I only had two classes that met and for the most part we just reviewed and the teachers answered questions. The only class were we really did anything was in my Macro Economics class, as always we were behind on material, and the teacher raced through as much as he could in the last two days. Apparently, we will have another review before the test if we want to schedule one with him, so my friend Miguel from Portugal that is in the class is going to do that for the two of us. That was about all that happened at school the last week, once again not too interesting.
On Friday, which would have been about the 18th, Ryan Lathrum, a coordinator at the Business school back at ASU came to Madrid with his friend Stephen. We were put in touch by some by mutual contacts, and I offered to show the two of them around the city a little bit. We ended up having a great time together, Ryan lived in Madrid once upon a time but it was just very briefly and he was studying so he had forgotten some of the places but it was all coming back to him very quickly. We wandered around the city in the evening Friday night when they arrived, took in the night life during Christmas, enjoyed the beautiful lights all over the city, and then found are way into one of my favorite Tapa's bars for dinner. Needless to say, we had a superb meal of great Tapa's and some nice wine, and on top of the that they spoiled me and treated me to dinner.
The next day I had a slow morning, it was my second to last day in Madrid, and I was supposed to be packing to take one of my bags to Marc's house to store while I was in Portugal. I got absolutely nothing done in the morning, and left the house at about 1 in the afternoon to meet up with Ryan and Stephen again. We went to a few more places around the city, and again ended up at a different one of my favorite places for lunch, we all shared a few different sandwiches: Calamari, Chorizo, and Tortilla to be exact, and then continued on our trek. We finished the day off at the Reina Sofia Museum of Modern Art where Pablo Picasso's famous piece Guernica is kept. I had already visited the museum before, but it had been a few years, and it was cool to get a second look at some of the pieces, and enjoy the new ones also. That evening, I packed my whole life into two suitcases, and cleaned my room so I would be ready to move out, and go straight to the airport on Sunday. After packing, I lugged a huge duffel bag down to the train station and jumped on a train to get to Marc's house. I almost made it there, until we passed the station and I realized that I had caught the wrong train, ha ha ha; I felt like a complete and utter idiot, it was the first time that this had happened to me, and on top of that, I was meeting his whole family for dinner and kept them waiting for 45 minutes while I had to switch trains, wait for another one and then finally arrived! Thank goodness that they are really nice and dd not tear into me! We all went out for Chinese food a a restaurant near their house. No, not the same one that I tried the Tripe at thank goodness. After the meal I was planning on heading back to Madrid and calling it a night, but Ismael and Javier called and wanted to go out to a bar for a few drinks before I left town and it would have been rude of me to tell my best friends no so we went out on the town. It was a real lo key night, we stayed in Pozuelo which is a suburb of Madrid and went to a bar and ended up meeting up with a bunch of different friends that I had met since arriving. I ended up staying the night at Marc's and then waking up early in the morning and catching the bus back to Madrid. When I left his house at 10:30 in the morning, the thermometer read -10C, which is way too cold, damn was I glad to be leaving!
Sunday I arrived home, packed up the rest of my stuff into a backpack and was off to the Airport after saying good bye to the old guys I lived with for the last three months, Jose and Charles. I arrived at the airport just to find humongous lines of people traveling for Christmas, which I was not expecting but should have been. Luckily, I arrived with plenty of time and on top of that my flight was delayed an hour and a half. If Flight from Hell was a movie, I was on the set! A trip that is usually 4 hours from the time I leave my door to the time I arrive at my grandmas took me over 7. Once we all boarded the airplane the mayhem started. First off one of the ground crew members came one and said that there was one too many people on the plane so they started calling out names to see if they could figure it out, after about 20 minutes of flight attendants walking up and down the Isles, the figured out that it was a baby that had two boarding passes or some malarky of the such. To add insult to injury, without skipping a beat after the first messed had settled the captain made the dreaded move you never want to see, he came out of the cockpit to address all of the passengers. let me see if I can do tis justice (Insert thick British Accent HERE) "Well Ladies and Gentlemen I regret to inform you that it looks like we will be here on the tarmac waiting to take off for a little bit. Apparently the runway that we usually depart from has a whole in it; I am not quite sure what happened, but I know that they are trying to repair this whole as quickly as possible. In the mean time, we have been put in a cue with all the other flight leaving Madrid tonight and we are going to have to wait our turn, we had to get you all on to the plane in case they move us up in the order and we are able to take off sooner than expected. At this point it looks like we should be set t take off in about an hour or and hour and fifteen minutes or so. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thank you for flying with EasyJet." That was about 99% accurate, damn I am good. To cap it all off when we arrived in Lisbon it was pouring down rain and my bags came off the carousel complete drenched with water, but man did it feel good to be in Lisbon.
I will need to pick this up in a while, off to more family functions.
Phil
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Dec 9th - Dec 14th
SNOW DAY, yes you heard me right, SNOW DAY...Unfortunately, school was not canceled, but it was fun waking up to a white Madrid. The city looks much different when covered with a light dusting of snow.
So it has been a short week since I last wrote on Wednesday. The end of the hectic week at school wrapped up well. I finished with a presentation in my first year class, had an exam in the same class, and then worked on preparing a presentation for Marketing class, today, Monday. Apart from that, Thursday night I went out for Tapas with some of my colleagues in my marketing class. It was a nice little end of the semester get together.
Well, before getting into the dinner, lets take a step back and touch on something I forgot about last week. So, mom has been riding me to tell more about the culinary experiences I have had here in Madrid, what kind of different things have I eaten. After writing last weeks post something hit me like a 2"x4" across the head, how could I have left it out. If you recall, last weekend at Marc's house we ordered Chinese food, and one of the plates that we got was Kung Pao Chicken; well, much to my surprise when I opened the container, the Kung Pao Chicken had Tripe mixed in with it. Needless to say this would never happen back home and I was at a loss for words when I turned to Marc and said something along the lines of "Pero que es eso, ponen Tripas en el Pollo?, No puedo comer eso, que hasco." (simply translating to "what the heck is going on, they put tripe in the Chicken here, I can't eat that, Nasty!) and he laughed and replied "Con dos Huevos, vamos" (Come on man, grow a pair)...Sorry for being blunt, but that's just about how it went!...What could I do, he was challenging my masculinity because I could not eat tripe, so I buckled down, overcame my fears, and ate a piece while trying to keep a straight face! Ok, so it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be; I was truly surprised by my courage, never would I have thought I could stomach eating Tripe. So there you go mom, culinary experiences.
Where were we...ah, yes the Tapas on Thursday night, that is how I got onto this subject in the first place. So we sat down at this Tapas bar where you pay a flat rate and they just keep bringing different tapas out until everyone is done eating, perfect for college students right! But what is the first thing that comes out of the waiters mouth, "Todos le gustan Oreja?" (Everyone likes Ear?) and without skipping a beat everyone said " si traigalo" (Yea bring it out)...[GULP]...The first thing that came to my mind was Marc the week before saying "Vamos, con dos Huevos!", another thing that I was not too sure about eating, but I had to try it! Sure enough as before it was not half bad, as a matter of fact the pigs ear was actually pretty good, I am not sure that I would order it, but if it were in front of me I would eat it again. I actually ate two or three pieces. Other than the pigs ear, the tapas were pretty standard: Tortilla Espanola (potato and egg), Chorizo (not like the Mexican one we are accustomed to at home, I think this one is much better), Patatas Bravas (potatoes with Brava suace, red sauce), Pimentos de Patron (little roasted, salted peppers, not spicy), and of course Sangria. I am pretty sure a great time was had by all. After dinner, we all went out to a few different places, and then I made the long trek home. From the part of town where we went out it took me about 30 minutes to walk home, unfortunately the Metro does not work at 4 a.m.
Friday morning I woke up with a cold. If I had to guess, I would like to say that it was not from the walk home with just a sweater and low 30's temperatures, but I probably would be lying. I spent most of the day sleeping and trying to get better. That evening, there was a get together for one of my best friends here Ismael. His birthday was on Saturday so Friday night we were all going to meet up to go out to dinner and then to the clubs after to celebrate, there was no way I could miss it. We all met up at a German restaurant, and had a big group dinner with about 18 people from his university and other friends of his such as Marc, Javier,Joaquin and the rest of the usual suspects. I tried to go home right after dinner, but for some reason I was talked into going out for a little to celebrate, stuck to sprite, and was able to duck out before to long and make it home for some more R&R.
Saturday was another day of laying in bed sleeping as much as possible, watching some movies, and drinking a ton of green tea. Yet again, another one of my friends had a birthday party and I could not miss it. I met up with Marc in the evening around 9 and we went to a Indian restaurant that we are now regulars at I would say; we walk in and the owner comes over to give us a hug, welcome us, and asks how we are! I had a nice Lentil soup, and some spicy chicken Vindaloo to try to kick the cold, it did not fix it a 100% but I woke up feeling better on Sunday! After dinner, Marc and I stopped by my friends Ries' apartment for his birthday party. I tell you what all of there people from the Netherlands stick together, there were about 20 or 25 people there having a few drinks before going out and maybe 5 or so were not Dutch. It was nice chatting and wishing Ries a happy birthday, and as I did the night before after a short while I was able to get out of there without being sucked into going to the club all night, success. Another long night of sleep, and more R&R, not a bad day to end the weekend. I was able to speak with my parents, and Rick since he took my spot at home for the weekend, and heard about an awesome ugly sweater party that all my friends back home went to, the pictures look great by the way guys!
Well, that takes us full circle back to today...sitting here in the library after my successful final marketing presentation, in Spanish no less, feeling liberated with only a few more lectures between me and a winter break in Lisbon. Hopefully it will not snow too much more this week and the weekend comes quickly.
As always I hope you are all well back home, finals went well for everyone that has finished, go well for everyone that is finishing, and more importantly that everyone has a wonderful Holiday season. Happy Hanukkah to those of you you celebrate.
Much Love,
Phil
P.S. A Huge Congrats to Amanda Fraser for Graduating this semester also, I am sorry I forgot to add you in the post last week, but I am real proud of you too, CONGRATS!!!!
So it has been a short week since I last wrote on Wednesday. The end of the hectic week at school wrapped up well. I finished with a presentation in my first year class, had an exam in the same class, and then worked on preparing a presentation for Marketing class, today, Monday. Apart from that, Thursday night I went out for Tapas with some of my colleagues in my marketing class. It was a nice little end of the semester get together.
Well, before getting into the dinner, lets take a step back and touch on something I forgot about last week. So, mom has been riding me to tell more about the culinary experiences I have had here in Madrid, what kind of different things have I eaten. After writing last weeks post something hit me like a 2"x4" across the head, how could I have left it out. If you recall, last weekend at Marc's house we ordered Chinese food, and one of the plates that we got was Kung Pao Chicken; well, much to my surprise when I opened the container, the Kung Pao Chicken had Tripe mixed in with it. Needless to say this would never happen back home and I was at a loss for words when I turned to Marc and said something along the lines of "Pero que es eso, ponen Tripas en el Pollo?, No puedo comer eso, que hasco." (simply translating to "what the heck is going on, they put tripe in the Chicken here, I can't eat that, Nasty!) and he laughed and replied "Con dos Huevos, vamos" (Come on man, grow a pair)...Sorry for being blunt, but that's just about how it went!...What could I do, he was challenging my masculinity because I could not eat tripe, so I buckled down, overcame my fears, and ate a piece while trying to keep a straight face! Ok, so it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be; I was truly surprised by my courage, never would I have thought I could stomach eating Tripe. So there you go mom, culinary experiences.
Where were we...ah, yes the Tapas on Thursday night, that is how I got onto this subject in the first place. So we sat down at this Tapas bar where you pay a flat rate and they just keep bringing different tapas out until everyone is done eating, perfect for college students right! But what is the first thing that comes out of the waiters mouth, "Todos le gustan Oreja?" (Everyone likes Ear?) and without skipping a beat everyone said " si traigalo" (Yea bring it out)...[GULP]...The first thing that came to my mind was Marc the week before saying "Vamos, con dos Huevos!", another thing that I was not too sure about eating, but I had to try it! Sure enough as before it was not half bad, as a matter of fact the pigs ear was actually pretty good, I am not sure that I would order it, but if it were in front of me I would eat it again. I actually ate two or three pieces. Other than the pigs ear, the tapas were pretty standard: Tortilla Espanola (potato and egg), Chorizo (not like the Mexican one we are accustomed to at home, I think this one is much better), Patatas Bravas (potatoes with Brava suace, red sauce), Pimentos de Patron (little roasted, salted peppers, not spicy), and of course Sangria. I am pretty sure a great time was had by all. After dinner, we all went out to a few different places, and then I made the long trek home. From the part of town where we went out it took me about 30 minutes to walk home, unfortunately the Metro does not work at 4 a.m.
Friday morning I woke up with a cold. If I had to guess, I would like to say that it was not from the walk home with just a sweater and low 30's temperatures, but I probably would be lying. I spent most of the day sleeping and trying to get better. That evening, there was a get together for one of my best friends here Ismael. His birthday was on Saturday so Friday night we were all going to meet up to go out to dinner and then to the clubs after to celebrate, there was no way I could miss it. We all met up at a German restaurant, and had a big group dinner with about 18 people from his university and other friends of his such as Marc, Javier,Joaquin and the rest of the usual suspects. I tried to go home right after dinner, but for some reason I was talked into going out for a little to celebrate, stuck to sprite, and was able to duck out before to long and make it home for some more R&R.
Saturday was another day of laying in bed sleeping as much as possible, watching some movies, and drinking a ton of green tea. Yet again, another one of my friends had a birthday party and I could not miss it. I met up with Marc in the evening around 9 and we went to a Indian restaurant that we are now regulars at I would say; we walk in and the owner comes over to give us a hug, welcome us, and asks how we are! I had a nice Lentil soup, and some spicy chicken Vindaloo to try to kick the cold, it did not fix it a 100% but I woke up feeling better on Sunday! After dinner, Marc and I stopped by my friends Ries' apartment for his birthday party. I tell you what all of there people from the Netherlands stick together, there were about 20 or 25 people there having a few drinks before going out and maybe 5 or so were not Dutch. It was nice chatting and wishing Ries a happy birthday, and as I did the night before after a short while I was able to get out of there without being sucked into going to the club all night, success. Another long night of sleep, and more R&R, not a bad day to end the weekend. I was able to speak with my parents, and Rick since he took my spot at home for the weekend, and heard about an awesome ugly sweater party that all my friends back home went to, the pictures look great by the way guys!
Well, that takes us full circle back to today...sitting here in the library after my successful final marketing presentation, in Spanish no less, feeling liberated with only a few more lectures between me and a winter break in Lisbon. Hopefully it will not snow too much more this week and the weekend comes quickly.
As always I hope you are all well back home, finals went well for everyone that has finished, go well for everyone that is finishing, and more importantly that everyone has a wonderful Holiday season. Happy Hanukkah to those of you you celebrate.
Much Love,
Phil
P.S. A Huge Congrats to Amanda Fraser for Graduating this semester also, I am sorry I forgot to add you in the post last week, but I am real proud of you too, CONGRATS!!!!
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Dec 1st - Dec 8th
So, I was sitting here at home this evening trying to do problem sets for my Game Theory class and wasn’t getting anywhere with them so instead I decided to write this blog entry for everyone to enjoy. I mean who understands these darn economists and their Game Theory anyways! If you were wondering why this post did not go up until Wednesday, yes, the latest I have put one up I do believe since I began, there is good reason. This past weekend in Madrid was fin de semana de Constitucion, or something along those lines. It is the weekend they celebrate the new constitution being made, I am assuming after Franco lost power. The weekend could not have come at a better time. Things are crazy at school, well I guess not as crazy as back home, with everyone having finals, but here we have everything due before school goes for winter break, then we come back in January and sit our exams. I spent the weekend mostly relaxing, well, and having some fun also!
Apart from that, not much else happened at the end of last week, we are jamming through class material in my Macro Econ class, because in typical Spanish fashion we took way too much time on the first part of the material and now we are trying to play catch up at the very end. The goal is to finish some 8 class meetings in 3 and last class we did not even make it through one of the presentations…I am just making a wild guess, NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! Luckily the second half of the material has been much easier for me as my Spanish is improving, and if we had spent less time on the original material I might not have understood it so well. Once again, darn economists and their Theories!
Well Friday was the first day of the long weekend. I got some studying done in the afternoon and was planning on having a quiet night at home because Saturday night Marc, Ismael, Javier and friends were all planning to go out; but as usual one of my friends called, twisted my arm ever so slightly and BAM going out it was! We went to a Disco right around the corner from my house called Kapital. It is one of the most famous and well known ones here in Madrid, and I had been meaning to go to it but I usually go out on the other end of town because my friends from here live on the other side. Needless to say it is well known for a reason; the place is huge and Jams! It is a 7 story club that has different themes on each level. The first level when you go in is the main dance floor and plays heavy house / techno type music, takes some getting used to but fun to dance to and keeps things lively at all times. The second floor if I remember correctly was karaoke. The third was a Spanish dance floor, playing regaetone and other types of Spanish music, probably should have gone there more. But I guess it gives me a reason to go back! The fourth I think was some sort of oldies floor, the fifth was a hip/ R&B dance floor, the sixth was a Mojito lounge, and the sixth was an Arab style chill out type terrace. I hope that describes it all briefly. Well it was a blast and a good time was had by all.
On Saturday, I had a relaxing morning, worked on a little more homework, watched a soccer match, and read my book some. Later that night I met up with the guys and some of their friends from high school and went out again to go dancing. Tough Life, I know! We went to one of the places that we usually go to called Orange Café. It was a lot of fun as usual, and I got to meet some of their other friends who are always really nice. We called it a relatively early night, and I began my walk home, about 35 minutes or so from that edge of town, but nice and do-able. On the way home, I ended up running into some of my Dutch friends from school who had lost one of the people in their group, it was pretty funny running into them, and we ended up finding the other guy just up the street a few hundred yards. I hung with them for a little while, and then the group broke into smaller sections and I cruised on home with some of the guys from Germany and Holland. Such a big city, but I always seem to be running into other exchange students from my school which is funny.
On Sunday, I knocked out a bit more homework, and then headed over to Marc’s house to hangout. Another friend of ours Joaquin came over and we all had Chinese for dinner. I believe that was the only time I had eaten Chinese since I have been here, but that’s completely off topic! We did not do much but relax, and watch a movie, nice to have some down time and just hang out and not do anything. I stayed the night, and the next day was more of the same. It was a rainy and cold weekend here in Madrid, so it was only logical to stay in and catch up on rest and relaxation. I probably should have done some more for this business plan that I have been working on with the first year students, but just hanging out seemed like the better idea. Our buddy Javier, ended up coming over night to hang out, and apparently he needed to make one more model of a mouth because he is in dental school and it the models are due on Wednesday, so guess what, yours truly sat in the kitchen at Marc’s house and had to deal with those nasty molds. Not one of the things I really enjoy, but what are friends for. I was going head back to Madrid Monday night but we ended up going to see a movie, Spanish Movie, as in a spinoff of the Scary Movie series in the U.S. but based on Spanish movies, and it ended around 1:30a.m. and by that time the buses do not run from Marc’s house to Madrid. This morning, Tuesday, I got up relatively early, well around 11:30 or so and headed home. I knocked out the rest of the Business Plan this afternoon, and headed over to a little coffee shop near my house to have a café con leche, send a few emails, and watch Andrew Live on CHSTV. Unfortunately, there was some sort of problem with the Live feed so I was not able to catch it, but do not think I am not going to watch that replay first thing tomorrow when I get to school and my teacher is blabbering in the front of the class room! I was able to speak with Dad for a bit, it was nice to catch up, as usual, went fishing this weekend with the guys; Mom seems to be crazy busy with school, and John is getting through his finals. Sounds like everyone is doing well back home which is really good.
Well I guess I have put enough down for one sitting, I know some of you out there whine cause I can go on for pages! I hope you all enjoyed reading, and I did not bore you. I wanted to just say Good Luck to everyone that has Finals coming up, and a HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to my dear friend Lizzy who will be graduating.
Much Love Always,
Phil
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