Wednesday:
Wednesday evening Maren and I along with a couple others went to the movie Siete Almas (Seven Pounds) with Will Smith. By the way Siete Almas doesn't actually mean Seven Pound
s; it means "seven souls" which if you've seen the movie "seven souls" makes a lot more sense than Seven Pounds. Anyway, it was a very intense movie that had me bawling by the end--always a sure sign that it was a good movie. This also means that I actually understood what was going on. There were only a few scenes where we were confused, but we were very proud that we actually could understand the spanish. An interesting thing about movie theaters in spain is that there's assigned seating, and when you buy your ticket you specify whether u would prefer the front, middle, or back. It's first come first serve so we went very early to buy tickets because it's cheaper on wednesday nights so a lot of people go on that day. On our way home, we took some pictures of a beautiful fountain between La Cruz and Correos.Thursday:
After classes, maren and I ate and took a nice nap. We then met Mercedes, the girl we met on
the bus the week before, and went out for coffee. We had a spanish conversation and then an english conversation with a lot of spanglish mixed in. She learned a lot about english and we learned a lot about spanish. One of the interesting things she said was that she could understand Maren better than me when we speak english. She said it could be because I grew up in the country and don't necessarily use correct grammar. I also have a slightly different accent than maren and have a lower voice. On top of that, I have a hard time speaking slowly. Imagine that! So all of this combined made it very hard for her to understand my english.
We then met our group at 9 and headed out for the night. We went to a couple different bars and then to a disco. Maren was ready to go home at 3 so I accompanied her home. It was an early night.
Friday:
We slept til noon and relaxed for most of the day. I took a nice nap because i didn't feel very rested when I got up at noon. I felt much better after a nap. We then met Erica at Correos to go to the Orquesta de Extremadura concert at the Gran Teatro. The theater is very old and beautiful. There was the most beautiful chandelier hanging in the middle of the theater. We ended up getting in
for free because either Erica's host family gets free tickets or they paid for ours because when we got there, they handed us tickets. There was some confusion with seating because we thought Erica's host mom told us we could sit wherever we wanted. It turned out she must have said after intermission you can move to empty seats if you want. So we got kicked out of the 2nd balcony and had to go to our assigned seats. We didn't really get kicked out but the usher asked to see our tickets which it took us a while to figure out what he said. Once we did, he looked at them and said we had to sit up one more level. So we eventually found our seats in the third balcony. We actually had a very nice view from there. The concert was AWESOME. I didnt' realize how deprived of classical music I had been. It was very relaxing and just had a cleansing effect on the mind.
After the concert we met some of our group and Mercedes at Manometro, where we had drinks, Empanadas (tuna, cheese, and tomato in a fried tortilla like ravioli) and Calamares (fried squid). They are common finger foods at restaurants and bars. We then headed to a different bar called La Calle and danced there for a while. We got a little bored there and headed to Tacones (the gay
bar) for some more dancing. Two of Mercedes' guy friends met us there. We then met some more people at the disco Ivanhoe. We danced with a group of students from all over Europe studying at the same university. I met people from France, Germany, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and more. Maren and most of the group left around 4. 
Matt and I stayed as well as Mercedes and her friends longer. Matt left around 5 but I stayed with Mercedes and her friends (Isma and Juan Carlos). It was an awesome experience dancing with them because I practiced a lot of spanish and could also teach them some english. We stayed there til about 6, and I then thought we were going home. We ended up going to another disco near buy that stayed open later. So we danced and talked there til about 7. We then went home. Don't worry mom, they gave me a ride home so I wasn't walking home alone. :DSaturday:
Well since i got home at 7:30 this morning I slept til about 2, and got up and ate lunch. I then fell asleep watching tv and woke up with a crick in my neck so decided to move to my bed. Maren was also sleeping so we slept til about 6:30 and then decided to head to the bar that has the great burgers to watch the Real Madrid soccer game. We had supper there and watched the game. The bartender gave us a drink on the house because we've brought him a lot of business by bringing our group there for burgers. That was nice since I thought he hated us after our rendition of Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" last weekend. After the game, Maren and I got some delicious chocolate ice cream at the heladeria and headed back home. On the way we were met by--according to Maren-- "a very short, creepy, long-nailed man." He noticed we were eating ice cream in the cold which is a sure sign you are not from spain. So he asked our names and where we were from. And kept saying he loved us. At one point he howled at the moon and sang to us. So Maren and I were very creeped out and tried persistently to tell him we needed to go. We finally got away from him and went home. The walk home was beautiful. Tonight is the first really nice night we've had since we've been here. It's usually raining or windy or both. Tonight the sky was clear, the moon almost full, and a very light breeze. I enjoy the long walk home when it is this beautiful.
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