Cafe, Obama & Cows.

20-Jan-09, 21:52 MADRID.

So today was kind of a weird day.

I had my internship “interview!” And I put “interview” in quotes because I already had the job. It was more of a getting-to-know-you type meeting, but it was great! I thought that I was getting some sort of left over internship because of the whole psychosis with the Study Abroad office at BU, but this company is really cool. Since they do study abroad with students, they get to go on excursions and guess who gets to go with them.. for free! Yes! ‘Tis I! They have a trip to San Sebastian and Bilbao one weekend and another to Córdoba later in the semester. When I was told about this, I said “Oh wow, how much do I have to pay to come along?” and my boss kind of stared at me as though I just grew another head. She said, “Just tell me if you want to go so I know to order a hotel room for you!” Say it with me, Amazing.

Another fantastical thing about this internship is that I get to walk by the Palacio de Comunicaciones every Tuesday & Thursday on my way over there. If you told me a year ago that I’d be walking by the Palacio de Comunicaciones twice a week for four months, I would have told you to go get your brain checked, but it’s actually happening!

The interview finished pretty quickly so I found a nice little café to sit in while I waited for my friend Lori to meet up with me. Naturally, I had my cup of café con leche that was quaint and wonderful (much like me!) and was sitting quietly reading my recently purchased Spanish version of Frank McCourt’s Tis, which incidentally in Spanish translates to Lo es, and this man starts talking to me. He had a speech impediment and I had the hardest time understanding what he was saying because aside from the speech impediment, he was speaking Spanish (obviously). He started rambling on about how he used to live in Queens and the Bronx and that he was a lawyer. I’m not entirely sure if he was lying to me (because he didn’t really look like a lawyer), hitting on me, or just lonely. In the end, he gave me his card and left. Like I said, today has been a weird day.

Then I met up with Lori and we walked down Calle de Alcalá all the way down to Sol (on a sunny day, no less.) and saw Plaza Mayor during the daytime. It was nice and we did the picture taking. There’s a bit of a strange art exhibition going on in Madrid right now that involves painted cows. So there are just random statues of cows all over the city. Of course we took pictures with them because well, who wouldn’t want to take a picture with a colorful cow in Europe? This one is from last year:

Plaza Mayor was kind of quiet because It’s been really cold in Madrid so no one really wants to sit outside and drink coffee. I’m sure things will become more exciting once the weather becomes better.

After that, we went to the Instituto to watch Obama’s inauguration. They were streaming it from MSNBC and it was so ridiculously slow. At one point we were 10 minutes behind the actual event. But we got to see the speech even though it was stopping every 15 seconds (I kid you not.) It was so cute that he messed up during his oath. He is human after all and it showed that he was nervous, as anyone well would be! When that was done, we went to a bar nearby to take “freedom shots” as someone called them. I didn’t actually do that, but I did pay way too much money for a limon y vodka, but it tasted really good so I guess it was worth it. :P Curse the high price of hard alcohol..

Well that’s enough babbling for now.

Hope you’re enjoying the stories!
-La Pequeñita.