Since I wrote last, I have done and seen a lot. On thursday, I went with Jesús on his walking tour of the center of Madrid. We saw the Plaza Mayor, which has been rebuilt three times after three different fires;
the statue in the center of Philip III which, because of a hole that used to be open in the horses mouth, was at one point full of dead animals that had gone inside to next and could not get out; we went into the oldest restaurant in the world, (Guinness World Records certified), the speciality of which is 13 week old pigs that go into the original firewood oven and can fit 14 pigs at a time; 
we learned about the crest of Madrid, with the bear representing the government, the madroño tree representing the church; 
we saw the ruins of the first wall around Madrid, built to keep out the Moors (rather unsuccessfully);
we learned about the crest of Madrid, with the bear representing the government, the madroño tree representing the church; we saw the ruins of the first wall around Madrid, built to keep out the Moors (rather unsuccessfully); but I think my favorite part of the tour was the cathedral. The Almudena Cathedral took a long-ass time to build because they kept running out of money and just stopping in the middle. It literally changes style three times because of how long it took in between each stage. The stones even change color. 
By the time they finished, it was the 80's. The 1980's. The reason that this was my favorite part is because of the ceiling. I need to get a better picture, but this is how it looked in the whole building. So 80s, right? There are triangles of dark and light green, representing the palm leaves the people of Jerusalem greeted Jesus with, and each diamond in between is a specific pattern. No pattern is repeated, and it represented the diversity of the human race. So beautiful! 
We also saw the other Philip statue (a different Philip), and this is the first statue in the world that was a horse on only two legs. Philip wanted it to look like a painting of him, with the horse rearing up. The sculptor asked Galileo to calculate how much bronze he needed to fill the bottom half with and, because there was too much bronze needed, he ended up making the horse's ass much larger than normal. 
Finally, we ended seeing the 0km mark: the dot on the ground where every highway in Madrid takes its measurements, literally by the centimeter. 
So the walking tour was really cool. That took up most of Thursday, and Thursday night is a blank to me right now. Maybe I'll edit this later but if you're reading this, I obviously forgot.
Friday (Friday, gonna get down on Friday) was loco. I didn't do much during the day, but by 10pm we went out to meet a friend of Daniele's for dinner and beer. Then we went to meet more people at another restaurant for more drinks. We stopped by a bar for drinks and then went to a karaoke bar.
If you recall, I am a big fan of karaoke. I went every Tuesday for a couple years while in college to sit and have beer and sing songs. It was very organized you went in order, and there was plenty of room to sit and watch... if you don't already know this, every building in Spain is small. This karaoke bar, the ceilings nearly touched my head, and I am NOT tall, the room with the karaoke was tiny and the sound filled the building, all the Spaniards were singing at the top of their lungs, whether or not they had the microphone. we tried to sing Piano Man in Spanish and the Spaniards just took over. It was amazing to me how they knew every song that came on (I imagine most were regulars), and they all just stood around the computer, drinks in hand, dancing and singing. By the time we left there, it was about 3:30am, but the night was far from over.
We walked to a club called El Templo del Gato (Temple of the Cat), which played some seriously old American pop music, but it was still pretty fun. (Side note, native Madrileños are called gatos. There are a lot of legends about why, but the main one is that during the Moorish invasion, some soldiers or people were climbing the walls and the Arabs saw and said they looked like cats). We left el Templo when it close, at 4:30am and walked to La Plaza de la Puerta del Sol (The plaza of the door of the sun), and Jesús, having his ukelele with him, joined the big music circle that had formed around a fountain, and we listened to music and drank beers (sold by Indian men on the streets) as the street cleaners worked around us and the police cars kept watch. This was the first time I noticed that there are no stars in Madrid. I knew that would be the case, but I forgot about how strange it is to me... Kirksville has a lot of stars.
By the time we made it home, it was about 6am, and (11pm in Missouri, so it still felt pretty normal to me), and there were still tons of people out on the streets, because one way people party here is stay out until 6am, when the Metro reopens, so they can just take that back home. There are also night buses, but Madrid really is the city that never sleeps.
Saturday was very relaxed; Daniele and I went grocery shopping because they were having friends over to finish Game of Thrones that evening and she wanted to cook for them. That was basically all we did that day, and we went to bed by 2am. Sunday, I finally had a hotel available, so when I was ready, I left and got a taxi (with Jesús' help) and got to the hotel. My hotel roommate for these first three days is Tamara, a woman from Atlanta.
Orientation has been pretty insane. Sunday night we went to a restaurant that was cocktail style, bringing around little bits of food for us to eat, and allowing us to socialize and walk around and drink together. I met few friends that night; Steven, a fellow fan of Joss Whedon, Candice, a journalist who also watches the Newsroom, Hannah, Tyler, Amy, and so on. After dinner, at about 11pm, we went back and Tamara and I watched King Kong in Spanish (which is practically not even necessary since most of the movie doesn't involve a lot of talking) while we got ready to sleep. Monday we had orientation and it was exhausting. For some reason I couldn't get to sleep the night before and I was exhausted, but I learned a lot, anyway. I took a nap during Siesta and then we went on a walking tour with a Spanish tour guide who spoke in Spanish and took us through Chueca (the gay neighborhood) to our restaurant. I felt pretty good about the tour because I understood basically everything, although she was speaking pretty slowly for our sake. Each meal (besides breakfast at the hotel) there have been problems for vegetarians. The place we ate dinner did not know there were going to be vegetarians (and also a lot of Spaniards don't really understand what vegetarianism is) so when they brought out the main course, the vegetarians got plates of canned white asparagus. Not exactly appetizing (or... eatable). I'm just thankful that wasn't a problem for me, but it was definitely a topic of conversation that night.
And now today, we are doing some more orientation and eating some more places (hopefully with vegetables!) and hanging out, meeting more people. By Wednesday, we will get to another hotel for our temporary accommodations for five days (until the 23rd) and will have time to look for places to live. I want to live in Nuevos Ministerios, right next to the train station so I can get to my school in decent amount of time while still being in Madrid, so I'm going to start looking seriously tomorrow. I've been looking online, but I'm planning on walking around the neighborhood and looking for "En Aquiler" on the windows and lampposts.
Some surprising things I've learned so far:
1. Smoking is banned in buildings, and smoking is pretty much as common here as in the US (i.e., not very).
2. Banks close at 2pm (the beginning of siesta) but instead of opening later like most stores, after siesta, they remain closed.
3. The sidewalks and streets are at the same level, most of the time the only indication between the two are metal poles that keep cars off the sidewalks. And basically every road only goes one way.
4. There are a lot of laws in Spain that are "laws" in theory but are not enforced. Like drinking in the streets or anything to do with weed/pot.
5. Because people in the service industry don't get (or expect) tips, service here can be pretty crappy. If you're an ass, the waiters will treat you as such.
Until next time, adiós!
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