International Intercambio Night

Well a couple nights ago, I went to this bar for "International Intercambio Night", a night where people from Madrid and everywhere around the world go to meet up and speak in different languages. The bar was packed with people chatting away and it was sooo much fun! I met people from Scotland, Uruguay, Italy, Barcelona, Galicia, Peru and of course Madrilenos too. The entire night I was switching from English to Spanish, because not everyone who goes speaks more than one language. I made some more friends and we plan to meet up sometime next week! And yet another reason to make it better, they had soccer playing on the tv the entire time! Aaahhhh I just love living in Spain.

So since then I have done more exploring as I am trying to find 1. a CHI flat iron 2. latin spices and 3. a hair shop that can do my hair. So a variety of people have told me to go to a certain neighborhood called Cuatro Caminos, so a friend and I ventured out and it was amazing! Apparently this neighborhood is filled with immigrants and a lot are from the Domincan Republic, so there are stores everywhere (owned by Dominicans) that sells the products I want. And apparently all of the Dominicans think I'm Dominican (even though I'm Puerto Rican) and once they hear I'm from New York, they just start chatting away! So we easily found some stores to go to since they all pointed us in the right direction. Andddd....as we were walking we ended up walking to the Real Madrid Stadium, which was only 10 minutes away! Long story short: next year I definitely want to live near the stadium. Not only will I be right in the middle of all the bars to watch the games, latin food stores and hair shops are only a 10 minute walk away!

So today there is a national strike in Spain. All public transportation workers are striking about their wages, the economy of Spain, etc. Even flights in and out of Spain are cancelled! So I am staying inside because I don't want to get caught in the middle of the city-wide demonstrations and get mistakenly arrested. Also, I live in the north of the city and to get to the center, it would be over an hour walk and I don't really care to do that in this heat. Yes, it's still hot in Madrid.

Another observation: the prostitues in Spain have no shame whatsoever. On my way to intercambio night, the prostitues stand along this busy street with their skin tight, super short dresses and just wait for men to come up to them. It was a pretty entertaining sight as I just couldn't believe my eyes! It's not like I was walking up a dark alley at 2am. It was only around 7pm and the street is full of shops, restaurants, etc! Only in Spain.

So Friday, I'm going to visit my school, meet the teachers, get my schedule and I'm super excited! Till then!