Classes started Tuesday. I dont have much to say about that yet because today is the first day I will actually attend class. I spent half of Tuesday in line trying to get "inscribed" in the international office and the other half taking the final exam for the Spanish course. Yesterday was also spent on the Spanish course (last day).

I haven't been updating this thing lately because (here it comes) I've been very busy. Yeah, yeah, everyone is busy. The past few weeks have consisted of the Spanish class (3 hours a day), cleaning and fixing up the apartment which previously only Manolo lived in and which will now have to house 4 people, going out with the foreign students to some shitty and some okay parties, and exploring Madrid. By the way, public transportation rocks. I really like being about to get around a big city without owning a car. Also, one bus/metro/train station has a greenhouse in it with a turtle pond! It's pretty much the only place I get to see animals that aren't pidgeons or humans.

Speaking of humans, I met a couple of girls. A Spanish girl from here in Madrid and a spanish-speaking German. I made friends with the Spaniard and although there was potential for more with the German, she was at the end of her time here and has already moved back to Germany.

Oh well, if anything, these two experiences have served to boost confidence. I CAN operate socially outside of a computer lab populated by people I have known for years. Imagine that.

Oh yes, speaking of home, I don't want you guys to think I've abandoned my way of life for more "exciting" habits. I'm still programming, watching cartoons and reading things online about video games and politics and crap. Which reminds me, here's an interesting article that explains Nintendo's sometimes bizarre actions and the lamentable state of the game industry and puts them together to suggest that maybe Nintendo has something akin to a market strategy. You may have read it before, Tycho (I'm sure you know who I mean) posted a link to it about a week ago, calling it "probably the most interesting article I've ever read."

I've been pretty busy so this is just quick update:

I'm in Madrid now, taking a course the university offers for foreign students on techinical Spanish. I'm in the highest level so I'm actually learning something, not still working on basic grammar or whatever. The other students are pretty cool, most of them are German or French. Some of them speak Spanish very well.

Also, Nintendo Controller Revolution! Okay, I'm just going to say that I am very interested in how this will be used. I'd LIKE to say that I'm very excited about it, but it seems that everytime someone has something positive to say about Nintendo's recent innovative offerings they are yelled down with accusations of "fanboy".

Anyway, I'll have more to post later.

Photos I promised:



The Italians, Ana and I in front of a castle in Coca.




Ana and Alex in Segovia.




The impressive Roman aquaduct in Segovia.




Manuela and Paulo enjoying the view of the coast in Galicia.




Alex trying to throw Manuela into the icy waters of the Atlantic. Even I ended up swimming.




Reconstructed ruins of a celtic village in the mountains of Galicia that the Romans never bothered dominating.

Well, there are more photos but they'll have to wait.

Well, we're back from our week running around Spain with the Italians. We didn't see everything we had planned, but it was a great time anyway. Manuela and Paulo (the Italians) were very funny and likeable. It was a pleasure to meet them and spend a week in their company. A lot happened in said week of playing tourist. We spend a day in Galicia, stopped in a few cities (Segovia, Avila, Coca) on the way there and back, saw Toledo and stayed up way too late in Madrid on the last day.

Italian is very similar to Spanish; Alex and Ana, having spent last year with them in Germany, understood their parla almost perfectly and vice versa. It is an exaggeration, but it seems that Italian is like Spanish with an accent, minus some sounds and with a funny sing-song tone. It took me a couple days to get used to it, but by the end of the week I could understand them too.

I'll post some photos soon. If there is one word I learned well in Italian it is "belisimo." It means we saw some pretty neat stuff.