May 18th - May 23rd

The week of studying that never materialized!

It was definitely relaxing though, and a good break from the whole school deal. It was a pretty normal week, got runs in almost every day except for Thursday, the weather has been great and people are out at night and during the day more now that it is not raining or cold. On Tuesday we had the girls over for Lunch, it ended up being me, Catarina, Rosarinho, Rita and Mimi. It was a bit of a going away lunch for Catarina since she was leaving on Thursday to move back to Portugal. Which brings me to something I am not sure that I have written about yet, we are all moving out by the end of the month, so things are really winding down quite quickly. Before I know it August will be here and it will be back to real life…not sure how that is going to go over! Ok, back at it, Tuesday night we all just did our own things for dinner an called it an early night.

Wednesday, again chilled out and got a workout out in. That evening we had a going away dinner for Catarina on Calle Montera, which is one of the main drags in Madrid. It was a really fun little restaurant and we all enjoyed some fun plates for dinner. I had Chopitos, which are fried little baby squid and a salad which was really good, some of the other dishes were salad with crab, smoked salmon with brie, goat cheese with a sweet sauce and toasts, and a quiche of some sort also. After dinner Catarina and Rita and I came back to the house and had an Amarginha, which is a typical Portuguese liquor with an almond flavor that you serve with fresh squeezed lemon juice. It was a nice time, and a good way to say by.

Thursday night was dinner with Marc and Amy at the Indian restaurant. It was good as always, and it was one of the last times we were going to get to see Amy because she was headed back to Arizona to take part in some conferences for the summer. The meal was good as always and afterwards I called it a night.

Friday was probably the most relaxing day of all, after doing not much of anything all day but watching a tv series I walked all the way across the hall to Carlos and Rita’s for dinner. We did absolutely nothing but hang out talk and just have a completely relaxed night. Saturday was more of the same, except this time we had the Champions League Final to watch between International Milan and Bayern Munich and Mimi and Ana also came over to watch the game with us and hang out. I took some peel and eat shrimp with me, Carlos made some cheese, snacks, and finger foods finger foods, and Rita made a pork tender loin in a mustard cream sauce. We never seem to eat too badly when we are together!

Sunday morning I was up at the crack of dawn…well not quite, but close. I met up with Amy at 9:30 in the Moncloa bus station and we were off to hike for the afternoon. We went to a place about an hour away from here up in the mountains. We arrived at a stop were all the hikers on the bus started to get off so we quickly followed and did the same thing just to find out that we needed to have gone another 7 km or so t the right place. Luckily the road was flat and we started walking. About 100 yards down the road with my thumb out a really nice fellow named Luis stopped and picked us up in his VolksWagon van and gave us a lift to the correct forest…I am not sure why I cannot remember the name of the place. Luis is a Archaeologist from Bilbao and gave us many great tips about trails to go up for the day. We said thanks and left him in the parking lot and within about 10 minutes were lost, or heading in the wrong direction…we ended up seeing him and tagging along with him for the rest of the afternoon. It was nice to have our own little tour guide along with us. He knew the area really well, and was great fun to hike with. After being up and down the mountain for about 4 hours we made it back to the base of the mountain, and Amy and I were about to get onto the bus to head home but Luis offered us a ride back into Madrid that ended up being quite a bit quicker. It is always nice to meet those nice people out there…and I know at this point mom, and many others are saying “he could have been DANGEROUS” but there really are good people out there and he was a fellow student and outdoorsmen who was genuinely nice. He even took pictures of us and sent them this week. After getting home Rosarinho had a friend come into town from Lisbon for some interviews named Lara, we all hung out and chatted for the evening. Later that night Marc came over to crash at the house also because in the morning it was off to Istanbul!



Well, that was kind of a boring week but it gave me a chance to recharge the batteries a bit and hopefully that will help me study while I am in Lisbon! I am sorry this post is a week late but things all ran together on Sunday and Monday and I had no chance to post it. It has been absolutely non-stop since leaving for Istanbul!

Hope this finds everyone doing really well.

Much love,

Phil

May 12th - May 17th

The last half of the week seems to be a bit of a blur...Needless to say it was uneventful for the most part. Wednesday I think I hung around the house and attempted to get some homework done to no avail. You know when you reach that point where the end is around the corner yet there is not motivation to get the work done that needs to be done, well that was my Wednesday. The assignments were not due until Thursday so Wednesday was just another day to put things off! I did however get a run in and relax a bit which was good.

Thursday was the day to get down to business. Rested up, as in slept in to my liking, and then met up with Bruno from my Financial Systems class to write a paper for the class. We wrote a paper on the Monetary Policy of the European Union. It was semi-interesting, but a bit tough because it had to be turned in in Spanish. After wrapping up with that term paper it was time to get the final assignment of the semester finished. There is no better motivation than procrastination! OK so I didn't get started until around 11:00 p.m. but the good news is that I got it taken care of and turned in before Friday afternoon when it was due.

Friday was a review day for classes. My Financial Systems class had a re-cooperation session because the professor had a conference in Boston during the semester, and then I had my last Financial Management class. These classes were great because we went over all that we had learned over the course of the semester, and I actually was relatively confident that I actually knew the material! In Financial Management we went over a final exam from a passed semester which was also very helpful. Not only was it good to get the overview, but it gave us all an idea of what the final exam was going to look like. By the time I got home, I was straight exhausted. I was up too early (around 10:30) and then had 4 hours of tough classes. That evening I met up with Marc and Amy for dinner. We went for Chinese here by the house and then I called it a night. Again, i must be loosing my touch, staying in on a Friday...COME ON!

Saturday I got some chores down around the house...well did some laundry and hung it out to dry. I also got a long run in, and then was off to meet up with Vasco (a Portuguese friend that lives down the street) and a few of his friends. We went to the store, grabbed some stuff for dinner and made a nice meal at home. After dinner we laid low at home, enjoying a few cold beverages and then hit Gran Via to go see what this Fiesta de San Isidro is all about. For all of you that just were thinking, San Isidro, hmmm, he hasn't mentioned that before! Well, I was not really sure what it was until recently myself. San Isidro is the Patron Saint of Madrid, and this weekend there were a bunch of festivals and concerts all over the city and people dressed up. We went out to see what it was all about, and got there a bit after it was done! The city workers were all ready cleaning up, but there were still groups of people hanging out on the carpets that lined all of Gran Via where they had not started cleaning up. Although it was late, Saturday was also mellow and relaxing.

Sunday I slept in to my liking, again around 1:30 or so and made myself a wonderful breakfast of Breakfast Burritos. Not much better than that. A little bit later I went with Rita (the Neighbor) to meet up with Catarina, Rosarinho and friends. We all met up at Mercado de San Miguel to enjoy the sun and some tapas for lunch. Afterwards we went to a little plaza in La Latina and hung out for a while. We came home in the late afternoon, and of course Rafael Nadal was playing Roger Federer in the Madrid Open Final (Nadal, the Spaniard, WON), Real Madrid was playing for the La Liga Title (they LOST, heart breakers this year), and then The Celtics were playing the Magic. Needless to say my afternoon plans to study were gone out the window. It is ok, that is what the week is for right!? After all of the sports events, we had a relaxing dinner at Rita and Carlos's house and then I watched a movie and called it a night.

Well, that brings us all the way until Monday, Today. Hopefully it will be a productive week of studying and running. Speaking of which, I am OUT OF HERE! Beautiful day out, finally the sun has come out in Madrid. I don't know what was going on, we even had HAIL, yes you heard me correctly, HAIL, last week. Hopefully spring/summer is here to stay.

Well, I hope everyone is doing wonderfully.

Much Love Always,

Phil

May 4th - May 11th

What a Wild Weekend...by wild, I mean one of those weekends that you will never forget about. Let me paint this picture for you, but first lets get through the two lines that describe the week leading up to Martin's graduation party trip in the Italian Alps.

The rest of my week...as in Wednesday and Thursday before leaving Thursday afternoon involved very little. I met with my group for Financial Management for the last time ever, thank goodness, to do our last case study for the class. It went relatively smoothly and man is it nice to be done. Apart from the group work not much else happened. Rosarinho's boy friend has come into town from London to visit and work here in Madrid for about 10 days. He seems like a good guy, I have only seen him once at dinner cause he leaves early and I am usually out late, but everything is fine, well except for the fact that he SNORES like it is going out of style! Other than that, nothing really happened last week, a few runs, and lots of relaxing. OH YEA, and I made a big Mexican spread for Cinco de Mayo for the roommates, neighbors and another friend. It was definitely a hit.

Ok brace your self, this is going to be long, full of food and good times!

Preface:

In Italy there is a branch of the military called the Alpini (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpini), which are the elite mountain warfare soldiers of the Italian Army; and every year the current and retired Alpini's get together in a city (which changes year to year) for a festival, reunion, PARTY. These are mountain men, and few women, that are expert campers and have a reputation of being expert drinkers as well! Now imagine 400,000 Alpini in the city of Bergamo (population 100,000), camped in any tiny open space (public or private), while racing around the city in mountain jeeps, carts, motor cycles and many other forms of motorized vehicles while always having some red wine in hand and blood stream.



Here we go:

Thursday is when things got going. I arrived in Bergamo around 8:30 in the evening where Domingos and Sebastian were waiting for me with open arms. We went straight to Sebastian and Martin's Grandma's house for dinner. At dinner we were 7: Martin, Sebastian, Domingos, Tio Alejandro (Martin and Sebastian's dad), Nonna (Tio Alejandro's mom, Sebastian and Martin's Grandma), Monica (Tio Alejandro's friend), and I. Nonna made a huge Paella which was fantastic and we all enjoyed the meal and each others company. As if dinner would be complete with just Paella, Nonna then set out a spread of deserts that was all sorts of amazing: Tiramisu (homemade by Sebastian and Domingos), Chocolate cake (homemade by Nonna), Hazelnuts, Strawberry, and Vanilla Gelato, and then a variety of cookies. It was great to get to meet their grandma and enjoy the homemade meal. After dinner we headed off to fabricate some make shift Alpini hats, and we were off on the town! We met up with some of Martin's friends at a local bar, and then headed up to Citta Alta (the old part of Bergamo, up on the hill) to take in the Alpini in their best form. Thursday night was relatively mellow because they were still heading into town, but all the same it was quite a sight. At one point we saw a group of about 15 Alpini piled onto what looked like a nursery cart, doing a wheel stand (driving simply on the back wheels down the road!) After all the shenanigans, we made our way to a place called Bergamo 1...When you pull up to the palace it looks like an old warehouse in an industrial neighborhood, which it is, but it is also a bread factory that serves hot pizza by the slice, or mini pizzas to anyone that knows about it for a mere 2 euro! This quite possibly, is the best pizza that I have ever had!

Friday we woke up at a decent hour and went up to the top of Citta Alta and went for a walk and caught some views from a mini castle at the top of the hill. It was great to overlook the city of Bergamo and tour around a bit. For lunch, we made a a type of ravioli that was cheese stuffed with a butter, sage, and pancetta sauce. These guys know how to cook and eat well. Apart from the ravioli, we also made homemade bruschetta which was really good. Later in the afternoon it was off to go see what all the Alpini where up to. The streets were really starting to fill up, and the Alpini were coming into their form. We enjoyed a bottle of wine while cruising the streets before stopping in at an art exhibition that Tio Alejandro was having in Bergamo. It was really cool to see his art and the space that he filled. It was a room about 4 meters wide by 10 meters long, and apparently it is the smallest space that he has ever worked in, but it turned out really well. After lunch we cruised around and tried to be as Alpini as we could! We ate some roasted suckling pork sandwiches, drank some more red wine, and were one of them! For dinner, Martin made a polenta with cheese mixed into it and a red sauce with sausage and cubes of pork to go on top...some people would call that Heave on Earth! That night, we stayed in the downtown area with some of Martin's friends and just took it easy, and of course before calling it a night we went back to Bergamo 1 for a bit of pizza!

Saturday morning was an early one. We were supposed to try to be out of the house by 9:30a.m. but ended up leaving closer to 11:00! We met up with the other 6 of Martin's friends and began the caravan up into the Alps for some river rafting. I am not quite sure how but we were following on of his friends with a GPS and still managed to get split up and lost on the way there! We arrived around 2:00p.m. had a lunch of bread, cheese, and cold cuts; and within no time we were putting on wet suits and getting debriefed for the river rafting. Once we got to the river they made us all jump in the water to show we knew what they meant when they told us to float with out feet down river, and which ever other commands they gave us. Everything was fine until you hit the water and with a full wetsuit on the cold went right through you and hurt your bones! It has been quite some time since I have been in water so cold. We split up into the different rafts and the water fights began immediately! The trip down the river was relatively quick, I think we were on the river just over an hour or so. Yes, there were people that went over board...at one point we were laughing at the a guy from the other boat that had fallen in and sure enough when we went down the rapid right after them we lost 2 people! Sebastian was one of the ones that went swimming, and the other two were a couple of Martin's friends. There was also a bridge that we stopped at to jump into the water. I think that almost everyone did it but one or two of the guys. It was pretty fun, maybe about 4 meters or so. I was setting up to do a flip off of it the second time and the guide started yelling at me and getting all worried, so I turned around and asked if it should be a back flip instead! Not sure why he didn't want us doing flips off of it, but I complied unfortunately. After the rafting, we hung around the place where we did rafting, played fooze ball, threw darts, and just chilled out. The place we stayed was right near the rafting company, and was an apartment building that they rented out rooms of so we got 2 of them and we all crashed in this place right on the river. the last event of the day was a typical Alpine Italian dinner at a mountain lodge. It took a while to drive up the longest drive way imaginable to the top of a mountain to come to this little community of houses with slate stone roofs. The views were incredible from the top, and we all came with a big appetite. There was no menu at the restaurant, we sat down and the plates started flowing out of the kitchen! The first thing to come was of course, wine and bread. After that, a plate of white cheese with walnuts came that was pretty mild. The second appetizer was Anti-Pasto that consisted of a bean salad, asparagus with a mushroom sauce, Prosciutto, a couple other dry cured meats, a baked salami, a meatball wrapped in a grape leaf, a type of empanada filled with onions and leaks, and a pickled pepper salad. The first first plate was two types of sausages with boiled potatoes which were UNBELIEVABLE...I know you are saying, boiled potatoes how could they be so good; I am not sure how they did it but they were perfect. The second first plate was Asparagus Risotto with Parmesan cheese over the top, another wonderful dish. The main course was the next thing to come, and it consisted of whole wheat polenta with three different dishes: Baby roasted goat, Stewed frog (in a white sauce), and rabbit. All of the plates were amazing, a typical Italian Alpine meal with ingredients from the region. As if that were not enough, they then brought a homemade tart that was almond flavored with raspberries and blueberries, coffee, and lastly 4 different liquors to help digest! There were three different types of Grapa (Grape Liquor), and one artichoke liquor of all things. I tried them all, was not impressed by any except for one of the Grapas which had a mint flavor to it. Needless to say it was a meal that I will remember for the rest of my life! We headed back to the house to hang out, laugh, joke, and tell stories and call it a night.

Sunday morning we were going to go get groceries for a barbecue but people were not feeling up to it because the weather wasn't great so we all headed back to Bergamo. Domingos, Sebastian and I decided to try to catch the final Inter Milan game of the season, but after battling the crowds and rushing to get there in time, the cheapest seats that we could find were 110 euros so we decided that we would head home and watch it there instead. Once we got to Bergamo getting home was interesting. The street in front of their apartment building was being used as a staging area and we could not get any where near the house. We finally made it home, watched some of the game, and then headed out to enjoy some red wine and watch the Alpini parade around in their robin hood hats. That night for dinner we made a fish in red sauce, roasted potatoes with zucchini, and a mixed vegetable quiche. We did not have a single bad meal while we were there. After dinner, we headed up to Citta Alta to see what was left of the Alpini, had a cocktail and called it an early night.

Domingos had a flight at 6:30a.m. so we were up at 4:45a.m. to pack and get ready to leave the house by 5. Martin and I dropped him off at an airport in Milan, and then headed back to Bergamo where Martin dropped me off at the airport. For some reason Ryanair flies to the little Bergamo airport and not Milan, but it works out very nicely for me! The airport was quite hectic with people sleeping all over the terminal because the volcano in Iceland is acting up again and a bunch of flights were canceled Sunday. Luckily after some minor delays I was able to get a flight back to Madrid, and make it back to school for my last two classes. After class, I met up with Marc and a friend of ours Vanessa, who we met in Morocco, for a last minute dinner. We ate at La Llama and showed Vanessa what Spanish cooking is all about. We drank some sangria and ate Sepia, Carne Adobada, Patatas Bravas, and some Pollo a la Plancha...typical Spanish meal. I finally made it home way too late and called it a night.

Today was another semi mellow day. I had the last class for international Finance, and the second to last class for Financial Systems today, and my last class World Economics was canceled because last night there were only three of us there (Spanish students always skip class, we were three American exchange students there!) so we breezed through the material and she told us not to worry about coming today. Other than that, I have been cleaning up from the trip, and am setting to post the pictures to the Picassa album (UPPER RIGHT SIDE OF THE BLOG) for you all to enjoy.

I hope this finds everyone doing wonderfully, and that all you mothers had a wonderful Mother's Day!

Much Love Always,

Phil

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

Apr 21st - Apr 27th

Dear Diary,


JUST KIDDING! -- My Loyal Readers!


It was a pretty mellow end to the week last week. Wednesday and Thursday like usual I did not have class which is nice because the 16 hours Monday and Tuesday are tiring. Ok, you are right, I did not go to all 16 hours last week, doesn't mean it is exhausting though!

On Wednesday I hung around the house for the first bit of the day...First bit of the day being from 2p.m. onwards. I am not sure why but my sleeping schedule has been all sorts of turned around this last week or so. I made lunch, and when the roommates got home we all ate together. Also, Carlos the neighbor came by to join us for lunch. Today was Catarina's graduation day for her Masters program that she is doing. I did not have anything to do so I went with Carlos and sat through the painfully boring ceremony. After the graduation party, Catarina, Carlos, Rita and I all went out to dinner with a few other friends from the girls Masters program. It was a nice day, and I think that Catarina was glad to have some one there to clap for her seeing as none of her family were there.

Thursday, I actually got a bit of homework done! I know it sounds funny coming from this mouth, but I had to get an assignment in on Friday, so I knocked it out Thursday. Apart from the homework I went to dinner with Javier, Marc, and Amy. We went to the usual Indian place in Lavapies, good as always! I was debating whether or not to go out Thursday night, but decided not to because of class Friday.

Friday class, although not my favorite thing, went by relatively quickly. On Fridays I have Financial Management and the practical class teacher is a girl from Taiwan. She is not very patient, and her English is very broken so it makes for a difficult class. I was excited that I found this class in English because it is a major class of mine, but I would guess that if it were in Spanish I would understand better than this ladies broken English. Friday night I decided to have all of my friends that wanted to come over to the house. Rosarinho and Catarina both went home for the weekend so it did not matter how loud we were or how much fun we had! When I say all my friends that wanted to come, it ended up being like 6 of us! Others were busy writing papers for their senior project (Alvaro, and Isaac), some were lost in space because of significant others (Vicky and Pitu), and well I guess that basically wraps up my list of friends here! We had a great time though, we ordered food from La Llama, a great tapas bar, my favorite, and brought it home so we could eat and drink in the comfort of our own house, at our own pace, without a restaurant packed shoulder to shoulder with smokers. Marc had a friend of a friend in town, Joy, because she was running the Madrid Marathon Sunday. It was funny when he introduced her because right away I knew that I recognized her from somewhere. She was the president of a club that I am a member of at ASU, but rarely attend! We had a blast, we ended up staying in for the night due to the marathon runner, but fin was had by all.

Saturday morning we were all a bit slow to get up and at it, but once we did I headed over to Marc's house to have lunch with the family. Javier, Marc's dad, came home with a brand new charcoal barbecue so we lugged it down to the back yard and built it while taking in the beautiful spring day. It was the picture perfect type of grilling day, the neighbors were all out, the kids next door were playing soccer and running around, not a cloud in the sky. It took us a while to get the whole thing built up because it was pretty big, but man was it worth it. Javier grilled up some chicken wings, drumsticks, and a couple different types of sausages. We also had grilled asparagus, and a Caesar salad. MMMMMMM, did that hit the spot. Saturday night I met up with Joy to grab some gels and so on because I told her that I would meet her at the half marathon point and give her them, and cheer her on. Later that night I ended up meeting up with a friend of mine form last semester, Timon. He came to visit over the weekend from Germany and we went out with a friend of his from back home and a mutual friend of ours Kim. It was a fun night and it was good to get to see him, but getting home at 6:00 am is rough when you have to be at the half marathon point by 11:00!

I woke up and made it to the half point about ten minutes before Joy got there. I gave her her gels, and ran along side her for a few kilometers before breaking off and heading directly back home and to sleep! She was doing well, and I know that she finished which was her goal. Later Sunday I had to meet up with my from Financial Management. We were supposed to meet at 6:00 pm but neither of my group members showed up until after 7:00...yes this is normal in Spain. The thing that I am not sure is normal is what happened afterward, we worked on the case study for about an hour...well I should say Marco and I worked on the case study for about an hour while Lara sat and chatted on her computer not paying attention. A couple of times I would ask her random questions about what was going on and she would give some answer that had nothing to do with anything! Not exactly what most would call participating. To add insult to injury, after we were a little over half way she tols us she had to leave because she was meeting up with her boyfriend to see a movie...now let me get this straight, you show up over an hour late and now you want to leave before we are done to go to a movie. I promptly told her no, the project is due Monday and we needed to finish it. We ended up working for another 10 minutes or so before Marco had to get going too. We divide the rest of the work, I was going to do part that night and send it to them, and they were going to meet up the next day to finish it, print it and bring it to class.

Monday was a normal day, my first class was canceled and International Finance went by rather quickly. When I arrived at my Financial Management class, neither Lara or Marco showed up, and when I looked through the stack of projects that were already on his desk, ours was not there. I should have known that they were going to screw this deal up. I talked to the teacher, and asked Lara to send me the final project she turned in because Marco didn't have it. Needless to say, I am still waiting for a response. Well it was not the best way to cap off the Monday but so be it. There was some good that came out of the Monday, I bought a ticket to go to Italy in two weeks for Martin, one of the Italian cousins, graduation party for his Masters. It is going to be some river rafting weekend up in the alps. Should be a blast!

Well, I hope this finds everyone doing just wonderfully.

Much Love from Madrid,

Phil