Defense Against the Dark Arts (and Fires, and Strikes, and the Anticipation of Never-ending Tours)

         How is it that it’s already Thursday? And how is it that we’ve officially been here for over a month? This week has flown by. (All of them have!) We’re starting to fall into a routine, which is making me feel more like a madrileña. We even got to cooorcoorse at the right time on Monday! Actually, we got there a few min early so we could stop by the Duke office and sign up for an intercambio! Intercambio is a program where Duke pairs a CEU student with one of us – they’re hoping to better their English and we’re hoping to better our Spanish! Perfect, right? My goal is to have Marta (my intercambio) at a good enough level to be reading my blog by December – I know; I dream big. When I got home that night I sent her an email, because I didn’t think we were the type of friends who called other (yet), especially because she had no idea who I was.

            Of course, I had a whole Monday to think about how best to phrase my email to Marta. After coorcoorse, we had painting where we continued to learn about all sorts of cool things. We were talking about Romanticism. Now, it might be because I just got back from Germany, but my favorite painter we talked about was Caspar David Friedrich.

Pretty uplifting, huh? Makes you contemplate your insignificance? Friedrich wasn’t exactly what you’d call an optimist. So it goes.

            After painting, Taylor, Erin, and I decided we would go do a “cultural activity.” (As part of coorcoorse, we have to do six such activities over the course of the semester.) There was a supposedly really cool King Tut exhibit in Madrid! It was in Casa del Campo (aka the nothingness in which the teleférico dropped us off.) Obviously, we got lost. Luckily, the nice woman at the metro ticket counter directed us. Apparently having an address of “Casa del Campo” does not actually mean you should get off at the Casa del Campo metro stop. Once at the appropriate metro stop, there were literally arrows directing us – it’s like they knew we were coming. I took the ambitious step of getting my headset in Spanish (in retrospect, perhaps not the best idea – apparently I missed out on a sick English/Scottish accent, and probably a lot of information.) The exhibit was kind of cool, but everything was a replica. LAME. I want to see real stuff. It was sort of a bummer, but we did unexpectedly get the one euro we paid to use a locker back when we returned the key, so all was not lost. We also went to bed excessively early which was awesome.

            Tuesday was pretty exciting, too. Asia noticed that the book we need for history is available online (fo’ free! I love free things!). We also went to the Prado for Painting. Frankly, I’m pretty embarrassed I haven’t been yet, but it was beautiful and I will definitely be back. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera with me, so I couldn’t snap any illegal photos, but don’t worry, it’ll happen. We went to go see Goya’s dark paintings. True to his word, some of them were pretty morbid. Luckily, after class we continued to explore a little more and saw some more uplifting paintings. We saw “Las Meninas” (classic) and Goya’s famous painting of a similar fashion of the court of Carlos IV (who we’re getting to know intimately well in History). Cool beans. I was going to post pictures, but CASAMAT's flippin out so you'll have to google them yourselves.

            We came home before our Madrid class to find Angeles standing casually in the kitchen with a blender on a platter on the stove which was ON FIRE (or fyURRRRRR as Mike would say Perry would say). This was not your average burner fire. This was a fire which warranted more than a shrug as a reaction, which is what Angeles gave us. She proceeded to remove the blender and platter and use the cup which was previously filled with oil to fill with water to put out the fire. Obviously it only increased since there were still oil remnants. Still unfazed, she continued to refill and dump the cup until it worked. At some point Emilio walked in, concerned about his lunch, and then left when he realized it wasn’t ready. Ironically, when we returned to our rooms, we found that A&E had posted fire safety instructions on our computers which Nuria and Eva had sent them. Perhaps if they were in Spanish that situation would have been handled a little better. After making sure nothing else was aflame, we grabbed our money and set off again. We bought tickets to go to Morocco! We’re going with a tour group (so not my usual style), and I’m so excited! Of course, there are so many other things to look forward to (such as every day!) before that, so it hasn’t really hit me yet. I was going to write that I managed to not embarrass myself in the Madrid class for once but that would definitely be a lie. Patricia, our professor, calls people out to give answers. I love this, but the one question I got was obviously the one I was the least prepared to answer. Rather than reading the succinct answer I had written down, I babbled in nearly incoherent Spanish for a solid couple of minutes. Good work, Nicole. Whatever. I’ll try again today.

            Wednesday was the huelga general! This means that subways and buses were hardly running (it took Emilio an hour to catch one!) and there were riots and marches all day. More importantly, it meant no class! Erin and I slept in until 9.15! I know; loco. I woke up feeling sort of sick so really wanted to do anything but eat. Of course Angeles had already prepared breakfast so I tried my best. When she saw that I had not done my usual amount of damage, I had to explain that I wasn’t feeling well. “Only soup for you all day!” (I wanted to make a Seinfeld reference, but felt like it would have been lost on her.)  I was down with that, so retreated to my room to enjoy the huelga in peace. When Emilio got back, he offered me some Aquarius water (“Good for the stomach!”) and told me I needed to eat something since he had heard I didn’t eat breakfast. (News travels fast around this apartment, especially when it’s about food.) We relaxed, watched some Glee (so good), and went for a run. Lunch rolled around – we had Cocido Madrid. (If you want to know more about it, ask Sydney. She’s sort of the expert having done a presentation about it in our Madrid class.) The first course is soup. I was excited that Angeles was sticking to her word. Of course, the second course came around and she was upset that I didn’t eat any. Oh, well. I was not winning favorite child yesterday. In the evening, it appeared as though the Metros were sort of running, so Erin and I decided to head out to the poetry lecture we had signed up to attend. Once we arrived at the metro stop, we got incredibly lost. Why? Because the map we were provided with was missing a crucial piece of information. Even the Spaniard we eventually asked told us it was poorly drawn. I know that from now on, I will be Google mapping. It was basically a poet, Ida Vitale, reading a bunch of her work. After the lecture, Angeles had obviously made me a full dinner. I told her I wasn’t interested and challenged her to eat it when she tried to pawn it off on Erin. She placed it down at the table, pulled up a chair, and took me on. I was impressed.

            Today has been pretty uneventful. I called Marta since she never emailed me back and we’re going to meet on Monday! (I was going to text but decided to just go all out.) I’m proud to say that I’m more prepared for this weekend trip than I was for last weekends, in that it’s not 1:30AM right now. We’re going to Barcelona tomorrow and I’m so excited! Having wandered around on an unnecessary 45 minute walk and sat through a lecture which I could have gone without, I think I’m nearly ready to take on intense day of touring that’s in store for us tomorrow. Nuria and Eva, show me whatchu got.