Things you might find in Madrid

seductive bus-drivers, policemen jacking joints, cigarette vending-machines, fútbol "hooligans", extreme hot-chocolate with churros, nationlism, black market, crystal chandeliers in McDonald's, lisps, siestas, "tortilla" holiday, exposed breasts on TV (for free!), Bob Marley impersonators.

Portrayals

One step forward, two steps backward

It's snowing again.

patient, restless, free

I’ve come to a stage in my stay here where I’ve stopped pondering of what is going on back home. It’s been this way for awhile. My life here is just so...”life-ish”. I don’t feel like a stranger. Even though my Spanish isn’t perfect, and my family isn’t really a family to me, sometimes I forget that I’m going back to my real home in four months. I’m so enveloped and submerged into life here. It’s very saddening to think about all of this being taken away once I leave. I feel like I’ll always be missing something when I don’t have what I have here. That’s the whiplash of this whole experience I guess.

Enough serious talk.

Funny fact: My gym. I can’t decide whether to compare it to a gay porno or Animal Planet. Lots of: muscles, man on man contact, grunting, crouching, pulling, lifting, chugging, devouring, and untamed hormones (all crammed into two tiny rooms). Enough said.

Wooly Mammoth

Four and a half months with no haircut! Madre mia. Literally a mane. Bringing out the "leo" in me...