Hey everyone!

Sorry that it has taken so long to write, it literally has been go go go.. 

It is Sunday morning here in madrid, and it's looking like it will be another beautiful day.  Josh and i have been so lucky, the weather here is gorgeous, warm nights, and hot days, but not too hot or humid! We thought it might be similar to the Philippines, (josh went through 2 sweat towels a day!), but it's not, so we are so happy!

Two things i have come to know for sure: Spanish women really do dress to the nines, everyday- the clothing here is beautiful, and i can't wait to actually start doing some shopping! i salivate as I glance at the mannequins in the windows.. wow.  and secondly, the city never sleeps.. no seriously it doesn't.  Somehow we ended up with a hostel facing just off a busy street, so sleeping has not been the most fun, but we are switching hostels (yet again) today, so hopefully it will be a little quieter! Josh and I have now gotten in the routine of going to bed around 3am.. is it the jetlag, or the extremely strong 8pm coffee??  But we spend the majority of our nights scouring over rental apartment ads, using "google translator" (our new best friend) to help us understand. We are getting to understand some spanish, ambluembas, means furnished, which we recognize quote fast now.  it's actually quite surprising how little english is spoken here!!  we were shocked. Every time we ask, do you speak English, the response is usually no.  So we struggle through, with my poor Spanish (but actually better than i thought) and our mix of french, somehow we are making it.  We are trying to learn new words everyday, and we are able now to have short spanish exchanges.  At the gym yesterday (this was very exciting for me!!) we bought a day pass, and this occurred mostly in spanish. 

Other random adventures include lugging our massive amount of suitcases on the metro our first day-this was not fun, and someone actually tried to scam us! We were going up an escalator at one metro stop and these two guys hit the stop button and come up to us and asked to carry our luggage up.. i immediately said no and waved them away, thinking, huh that is wierd, why did he stop the escalator? we then realized that they were trying to scam us, and unfortuantely we had to lug our suitcases then down the escalator.. we were extremely annoyed, and one of the metro police then came up to us (speaking only in spanish) and I think asked us if we had all our bags, and for me to hold my hand bag close..  that was like one hour after getting to madrid..  an interesting welcome!  but we were lucky, my gut immediately said get these guys away, but we heard from Josh's program coordinator that other students weren't so lucky and one of his classmates from pakistan had already been pick pocketed!  So we are very careful, everything is always zipped up and close to the body, so i'm not worried. 

But we went to Josh's school on Friday, and got to meet the two coordinators that he has been doing email exchange with for the past 4 months. They are such nice ladies!! offered to be our translators for finding an apartment, etc.  His school is in a really nice part of madrid, older, as everything is here, and we have already eaten at the student cafeteria.. haha.

So as the apartment hunt continues full steam ahead, we take some time to walk and sit at cafes and drink coffee and sangria.. but it definitely has not been a touristy vacation so far- as we expected. we spend a lot of time in our room on the internet looking at ads.  So we are hoping that maybe tonight or tomorrow we will get some time to do some walking tours and wander the city more, possibly even meeting up with some of his classmates later tonight.

So overall, we are loving this city! so vibrant, and quite multicultural, the older madrid has these windy cobblestone streets and old stunning architecture that i just love!  There are always people in the street, eating tapas (which we have yet to really get our hands into), and chatting-  there is a lot of life here.  It is a relaxed, laid back atmosphere and getting around with the metro is amazing. I can't believe I am leaving this place to go back to vancouver.. but i guess i should go graduate eh?  I will hopefully be getting feedback on my project tomorrow, so after I get the greenlight, I should feel better about everything.

OK well, phew, sorry about the book, but I had a lot to say (and didn't even cover all of it!).

I will write sooner next time and post some pictures.  Hope you are well!

We'll have a glass of sangria for you!!

Dan