Saturday, Jan 26th

Well, I'm finally settled. That's why I haven't written anything in a week is because I was just settling in. And now some commentary on Socialism:

Last Monday my roommate had a fever and didn't feel well. In the US, a fever (that wasn't too high) would not warrant a visit to a doctor, you'd just take some fever reducer or cold medicine or something. But HERE apparently, if you have a fever, the protocol is that you see a doctor. So my house mother told Jacquelyn she had the option of either going to the hospital for a consultation or having a doctor come see her at the house. Yes, that's right, a HOUSE CALL! I didn't even know they still did that. So she decided for the house call. My house mother called the doctor, and within an hour there was a serious, certified DOCTOR at our door. He inspected her and gave her some medication and guess how much it cost? 17euros!! How crazy is that? That doesn't even exist in the United States. I thought it was awesome. And if she'd chosen to go to the hospital, it would have been free.

Later that day, while Jacquelyn was sick in bed, I decided to go to El Retiro, the main, huge park in Madrid. It was beautiful...and spotless! The sidewalks were swept, there was no garbage anywhere, the bathrooms were pristine! And this is because they have SO many employees to do this. This is socialism for you. And I happen to like it at this point.

I've been shopping all day for airline tickets. Ed is coming to visit me!!! And we'll visit Amsterdam and London, and then after he leaves, I'm flying on to Greece, and maybe I can squeeze in Florence if my friend is in town that weekend. (It's his spring break too, so he might be traveling. In any case I'm spending a TON of money on all this. Madrid is expensive in itself, BUT, as my dad pointed out, I should live it up while I'm here and travel as much as I can. He says he won't let me starve.

Next week we have a school organized trip to Andalusia which will be really fun, and then afterwards I'm going to a Carnival in Cadiz (which is in southern Spain) and then we're going to Morocco for a day trip. I will have been to AFRICA! I bet things are cheap in Morocco too.

Need to start reserving Hostels for all these places.

My Senora is a big nag half the time. She nags me that I don't take the bus everywhere. I like the bus, but sometimes I don't know which route to take so it's just safer to take the metro. We also got into a slight altercation today. Jacquelyn and I, usually when we can't finish our dinners we ask her if we can just eat it for breakfast, and she always says yes. Yesterday night, she wasn't home for dinner so she left us two HUGE bowls of Spaghetti. We decided to just split one bowl and put the other in the fridge. This morning we were like "Can we eat the spaghetti?" and she was like "What?! You are only allotted 1 big meal a day, dinner. You can't have two. For breakfast you eat cereal or fruit or something, but you can't expect to eat two big meals a day. I'm generous but this was not included!" And blah blah blah. We didn't mean to start anything! Not to mention, that of course all of this is in Spanish, so we were responding with "si, si si" and she kept saying "Do you understand me? You don't understand me! You never understand me!" We understood every word we just didn't have much to respond with, but she didn't believe us. It was horrible. She wasn't yelling but she was just being....ANNOYING! Like, OK FINE WE WON'T EAT THE SPAGHETTI! So then Jacquelyn asked if since she wasn't going to be here for dinner, if she could just eat her dinner right then (because it was already ready) And she had another freak out saying she'd never been asked in her 15 years doing this if you could substitute one meal for the other. Her opinion is that if you aren't going to be here for dinner, then you forfeit your meal. Well, fine, but she just dragged it ON and ON and ON. She is SUCH A NAG

She complains when we don't ask her for advice, when every time we do she just complains or acts insulted that we don't already know and even HAVE to ask. I wish she'd butt out.