Time Flys

Wow, one week is already gone.  I've been absorbed in the new style of living and immersed in the new culture and have hardly had time to realize that this has been one week already.  I've seen a lot of Madrid already.  Definitely not all of it, but I've made a good start.  From Alcala to Retiro to Sol, I feel like I've been all over.  Now it's time to start exploring outward.  Tomorrow I will probably be going to the Rastro (big time flee market, also breeding ground for pickpockets) and possibly see a Real Madrid game.  I'm real excited about the latter half of that, should it come true.  

It's definitely interesting seeing how I've been stripped of all that I know and then expected to function normally.  Not only can I not speak the language (although I'm working on it)  I've had to learn all new professors and figure out a new schedule.  Here people do not go to sleep until about 12 to 1 or 2. When people go out it tends to be closer to 6 because that's when the metro starts up again.  Sometimes I don't want to stay out that late, but something usually ends up happening that I can learn from, so I'm never disappointed.  

Last night for instance, we went to Kapital, which is one of the best night clubs in Madrid.  It is kinda far (about a mile or two away) but it was worth it.  Kapital I'm pretty sure used to be a theater, but now is a night club.  It has seven floor (although the definition of floor is loose).  There is different music on every floor, but the best is the first.  The first floor is the biggest and has dancers on the stage.  A really cool part is that in the center of the ceiling there is a huge hole where a huge blast of CO2 will blow out and cool down the dance floor when the music gets to the right point.  The only real weird thing was that there was a guy that came out onto a balcony and started beating a drum to electronic beats.  Everyone else liked him, but i was kinda indifferent.  I respected what he was doing but I couldn't really get into his beat for dancing.  I definitely am not going back there without some girls and a promoter cause it was way too expensive.  It was 18 euros to get in and that was only one drink.  Talk about a rip off.  However, many of the food items here are rip offs.  I bought a sandwich today and it ended up costing 4 euros and all it was was bread and meat.

Apparently we are going out again soon, so this is going to be cut short and I might end up editing it.  I'm just a little tired right now to be writing well.  Today I rode the metro to Retiro and walked around Retiro, down to an anthropology museum, then to Kapital, then back towards sol in a roundabout way.  Overall a good day, but there was a lot of walking.  I was able to check out some different shops which was real interesting because the shops are extremely compact with escalators stacked on top of escalators.  But more of this later.  Hasta la vista.