A Week in Review...

What a let down... school started again!
But it's okay for 2 reasons:
a) We got free t-shirts
b) It's only 6 days

Tuesday was our second placement test.
When we walked into the room to take the test, we were shocked to see so few people! We realized that the program is really a month program and college starts before this program ends, so there are only a handful of people here for it.
The problem we had is that because there are so few people, there are few classes... so while taking the test, we had the choice between failing - so that we go down and level and be bored, or doing well  - and have them push us up 4 levels.
What to do....
After having struggled with the HARDEST teachers last semester, I decided that in order to keep myself sane, I would go down a level and be the top of my class...
So now, not only am I bored - but I have become the class translator, so it's fun.... sometimes!

There are very few people in my class:
Me (obv), Tawanda (on my program), 3 guys - one from Syria, one from Turkey, and one from Bulgaria, and a couple from Vietnam.
The most common language is english, which is great... but the guy from Bulgaria knows no spanish and no english, so it's really hard to communicate - considering that he spends more time texting then anything else!!

Tuesday afternoon, Aliza, Brenna (Bryce + Jenna), and I went to Plaza Ciebles. We decided that it's important to see every statue on the Madrid post cards, and this was one of them!
Right across from the major Post Office in Madrid is a little round-about with a huge statue of a women with lions. At night, it's beautiful because there are blue lights and water coming from the women's hands, as if she is whipping the lions
We were so excited to go and see it, but when we got there we saw that the statue was on a round-about island, and there is no way to get to it without being killed by ongoing cars and traffic.
Instead, one must stand FAR across the street to see it and take pictures with it... what a let down!
We were quite distraught, so we walked back to school, picking up Ben and Jerry's on the way.

At night, Aliza and I went to the Chabad Rebbitzen's shuir. It was about the building of the 3rd Beit HaMikdash. The best part: it was in Spanish... we're not sure if her spanish was easy or we just learned the information so we knew what she was saying... but let's just say, we felt pretty smart after the shuir!
It was really exciting to actually know what's going on when someone speaks in a third language! ... maybe we're on our way to trilingualcy! (...yes, I know that's a made up word!)
When the shuir was over, the Chabad Rebbitzen (who is now Shifra to us) told us to take a spanish book from the Chabad library to learn! We took a Chicken soup for the soul-type book (it's Jewish of course) but now Aliza and I need to actually learn from it because she might ask us questions on shabbos...AHH!

Wednesday, after our first real day of school, we went to see the Royal Spanish Palace.
It was an hour and a half wait and while normally, we would give up and come back another day, we decided to stay and wait.
It was actually one of the longest waits in the world but the palace was AMAZING. It is by far one of the greatest beauties of Spain... nicer then the palace in Seville; it was just stunning. If I had the choice to live there - I would.
The tapestry, the carpeting, the ceilings... the amount of gold and chandeliers... it was really so gorgeous.
The entire time walking through it, all I could think was: "Wow, would mommy LOVE the flowered carpeting..."
When we got back to our dorms, Aliza and I quickly kashered the microwave to make our dinner. Normally, we 'cook' in the afternoon in order not to bother people who wanted to use the microwave - but since we were running a little late, the process went through dinner.
A guy was waiting for the microwave and we were taking too long, so he got one of the head cooks to make us take our food out of the microwave... don't ask Aliza how her dinner was that night, because uncooked potatoes are not satisfying!
While we were quite pissed about dinner, a good thing happened.... the looney's from shul who took our number on the train called us to offer us their left-overs... 'cuz every day we're hustling... we don't really need anything, but you know - if they're offering we'll take it!

Thursday was spent at the Thyssen Museum...we used our tickets that the people from the first shabbos gave us, saving us 5.50euros!!
Though the art happened to be great and it was one of my favorite museums, I promise you, if we go to one more art museum - i'm going to pull off Van Gogh's other ear!
On the way back, we stopped at a Starbucks and I found out that the milk they use is Kosher, so I could have!!!!! After having gone into many Starbucks' with Brenna, this was one of the best days... I finally had a good coffee!
We concluded our great day with pizza dinner and baked potatoes as our makeshift french fries... but don't worry -- this time the potatoes were cooked through!