Es la epoca

I always forget that Tuesdays are blog days. Well, at least until the end of the day or Wednesday. But this time, I remembered! Mostly because I actually have a decent amount to say!

So, I just spent a few hours watching Mulan and Hercules and writing Christmas cards. I got a bunch of Christmassy things at a little set up in Chamartin station where they were selling crafts made by (and to help support) mentally disabled people all around Spain. It was a really good, heartwarming atmosphere, and the crafts were honestly fantastic. Just gotta make sure not to buy anything too breakable! 

This last week has been pretty good. I am still working on deciding what to do next year (I know I want to do this for another year, and in Spain, but where?) and also editing my novel. Saturday, though, was Melanie's birthday. She hosted a Christmas party and had lots of traditional British Christmas foods, including Mince Meat Pies, which I'd never had before, and which I'm still not sure if I like or dislike, and a lot of other wonderful homemade baked goods. So, we all hung out there for a while and talked and watched Love Actually as it played in the background. I had a conversation with Kate about how, yes, American girls do find Hugh Grant attractive because he's awkward and British, and yes, that really is a thing. 

Julie, Hannah, and I went through Sol to get back home and eat dinner, and had a whole bunch of fun wading through the giant crowd that was gathered there. The weird thing is, there wasn't even aything going on! Just a ton of people! Sol Plaza is decorated, but I would never have expected it to bring so many people out, even on a Saturday. Of course, it was also a holiday weekend (Friday was Spain's Constitution Day... do we have one of those? Maybe in September?) Either way, it took us way too long to get to the metro, particularly since we had to go one further than we normally would have because the metro stop at Sol was just a giant stream of people exiting, with no room for people to get in. It was pretty crazy. 

But then the sun set and night came, and we all gathered again at Mad Dogs Tavern to hear Steve and Melanie perform for an entire hour (and a half, really), and it was so amazing! Melanie went to college for music, and her friend Joey (don't know how to spell that to indicate to you that Joey's a girl, but she is), was in town and played her saxaphone and flute for them on some songs, and another guy, Jeff, played violin for some other songs. Basically, it was just a nice, talented group of people sharing their love for music, playing their own songs as well as covers, and they did so well. I sort of designated myself photographer and perched on the mini fridge in the corner the whole time, so here are some results from that endeavor.

Melanie's beautiful smile, getting ready. 

Warming up as the audience gets settled. You can't tell, but ths room was TINY. There should not have been as many people in it as there were. 

Melanie and Joey. Joey was seriously an amazing musician, although I really love saxaphone so I might be biased. 

CONCENTRATE

This was as far as I could zoom out, and you can see how closely people are crammed in there! There were a lot of people that wanted to see these guys play! 

Steve lookin' pretty baller.

Melanie and Jeff with the fairy lights in the background. 

So that was my Saturday! Sunday consisted of my making tuna casserole and morning glory muffins to sustain me throughout the week, and yesterday went pretty much as usual. School was fine, and my private tutoring was great. Andrea and I played pictionarry and then when Daniel got there we made snowflakes, which they had never done before! It makes sense: it rarely snows in Madrid since the mountains catch everything, but still, I was appalled. What eight and six year olds haven't been like a million snowflakes by that age? C'mon! 

And today was good, too! I got to make snowflakes with the class where I help with art, and the kids loved it (duh). In English, though, I got kind of mad at one of the kids. It was probably the funniest reaction though, because they were supposed to write down a few sentences about their school. His read: My school is big. It has a teacher verry verry verry verry verry angry. It has 3 playgrounds. 

I basically bust out laughing and just said, Okay, but "teacher" is a noun, so it goes at the end of the sentence, after the adjective. And very is spelled with one R. So that was a funny experience. I hope he doesn't hate me. He was laughing, so I think that's a good sign. 

Anywho, I've been up too late the past few nights so I need to go to bed!