Apr 28th - May 3rd

I think that I may have found a line from a song that describes my year abroad!!!

"All the crazy sh*t we did Tonight, those will be the best memories!"

Ok, so really the stuff I do isn't very crazy...but man has it been a blast, and it definitely will make some of the best memories.

The rest of the week last week was pretty mellow. I got a run in everyday except for Friday which I took off to rest the legs. Thursday night Marc and I took it way back to first semester days and went to our Indian restaurant just the two of us! After dinner, I met up with Vasco, a Portuguese friend of mine and we went to Plaza Santa Ana to meet up with my roommates, Catarina and Rosarinho, for a little botellon (cocktails in public places...very typical with younger people in Spain). It was fun to just hang out and chat and have some drinks, Vasco had some friends visiting from Portugal, and Rosarinho's sister Joana was also in town visiting. The night ended up lasting until the weeeee hours, and I still had to wake up at a reasonable hour to finish off a project!

For some odd reason I woke up at a ridiculous hour, 9:00 a.m. I am not sure why, but I guess it was not a bad thing. I had breakfast with Joana since Rosarinho was at work, and then finished off my project with plenty of time. Right about 11:00 I finally got tired so I snuck in a nap before heading to class! One problem with this, I set my alarm for 1:30 a.m. the next morning, not 13:30 that afternoon! Luckily, I woke up with 45 minutes until class started and was able to rush there and arrive just a few minutes late. Turned in my project and had no issues. Friday night came around and believe it or not I was completely beat, and decided that it was enough. The girls went out, and I stuck around the house. I think it was the first day that I stayed in on a weekend night all semester...loosing my touch apparently! It was a nice change of pace though, spoke to mom and dad who are doing well, and found out that Felicia is back home at Avo's house and doing much better which is a relief. OOOPS, almost forgot, not only did we have Joana visiting, but Catarina's sister and two of her friends came into town and were staying at our house...talk about a house FULL of Estrogen!

Saturday I was up at the crack of dawn, 10:30 or so!, and I got another run in...been trying to run every, but used Friday to rest the legs. It was very refreshing to get out of the house on such a beautiful day and see a bunch of families out walking and taking advantage of Spring in Madrid. After my run, it was off to Marc's house to help him get ready for the birthday party that we were having that night. There must have been a years worth of yard work that needed to get done and we knocked it out. It took about four hours, and we must have filled up around 15 yard waste bags, but it couldn't have been a better day to do it, and his parents were really happy to have someone get it done. We celebrated Marc and Pitu's birthday and had a mess of people over to Marc's house. I barbecued up a bunch of hot dogs and hamburgers for everyone, we sat in the back yard jamming to music and having a great time. Later in the night we went to this terrace disco called La Botellita and cut up the dance floor! Needless to say it was a raging good time.

Ismael, Amy, and I ended up crashing at Marc's house, but Isma woke up early and had to take off so he missed out on a mean lunch! Javier (Marc's dad) made a Lasagna and Gina (Marc's mom) made a salad with Lochs and a bunch of tasty stuff. I am not sure that I have a single bad meal at their house. Amy and I headed back to Madrid relatively late and I ended a great weekend with dinner at Rita and Carlos (the neighbors) house.

Monday was another long Monday. I was tired after my first class but pushed through the day and made it home with enough energy to get another run in! No major news from school, everything is going pretty well, and we are wrapping up here next week with classes, then I have about a month off and Fianls in June.

Well, that sums up the week. I hope everything is going well back at home, and want to give a shout out to all of my friends at ASU, and other schools who are graduating either this week or in the near future!

Much Love,

Phil