Friday's Recap

Because I couldn't get internet the last night...

Well, today's been interesting. Sitting here talking to Michele and waiting for the internet... Which means that this probably won't be posted for a while, but I'm going to go ahead and write this.

I made a list today. Several lists, actually.

But first, I need to do an update on yesterday's post.  You know that shower I took? It was the most obnoxious of my life.  Have you ever seen those faucets that you have to push and hold for the water to come on? You push them in and 30 seconds later the water turns off?  Yeah, that was my shower.  Fun, don't you think?

Ok, on to my list.

- Museum Security - What's the deal with not being able to take pictures? If you look on my facebook when I next upload pics, you'll see a lot of diagonal stuff and some are pretty blurry because flashes are what alert the guards.  Not only that, but they take your bags (I carried my bookbag because of a lack of a lock and having my laptop.) and make you go through a metal detector and put your stuff through an xray machine, like you do at the airport. It was intense. I understand the palace, but the art museum?

- Keyboards - The keyboards are different here (as in most foreign countries) and it is always weird to get used to.  Not to much to say, but it's interesting.  The biggest difference for me is that there are three symbols on the keys so there's shift and another funny key to get the third symbol.  Once I figured it out, it wasn't bad, just hunting for keys.

- Porsches - There are so many porsches here.  Small ones, big ones, shiny ones, new ones, and always black.  I don't know why, but they're everywhere.

- Cops - The police here wear bright, bright lime green uniforms.  Florescent to the nth degree.  It's kindof interesting, and very noticeable.  There are a good amount of them.  Mostly at crosswalks and large intersections.  They're at crosswalks because they arrest jaywalkers.  There are lights like stop lights to allow you across the street.  If you cross when you don't have a green light, then you get a ticket... which I saw first-hand.  The other thing is that crosswalks have sounds to let you know when to cross.  It sounds like the bullets in Space Invaders.  It's kindof funny, but also very annoying.

So there's my list. 

Today we went to Palace Real (Royal Palace) and walked all over.  we also walked up Gran Via and and saw the Neptune fountain and the Plaza de la Independencia (big arch) and the Puerta del Sol, where the bear and the strawberry tree statue is.  Then we went to the Prado museum and saw the art.  I recognized "Las Meninas" by Diego Velazquez from Spanish class, got to see a whole bunch of works by El Greco and Raphael and many others.  My "favorite" piece of art was a statue by Antonio Sola called "Roman Charity".  It was very interesting, but I suggest you go reasearch the story before you look at it.

When we got back, we all went to the grocery store and split meat, cheese, potato chips and cookies for dinner.  Most people "pre-gamed" with rum and coke for the pub crawl we're doing tonite.  It meets at 10:30, so about an hour before we go.  It should be interesting. 

Tomorrow Jackie and I are going to flea market early and then probably going to Toledo, but we don't really know.  It should be fun, whatever we do.

I miss everyone lots and it absolutely sucks that I don't have internet. There are computers available, but I don't have any way to move this over to post. I'll check my email and stuff. 

Time to get ready for a pub crawl. I don't know what it will be like. Hopefully fun.

Goodnight, world.