September 15 2022

It was a crazy day. When I left in the morning the streets were crazy because a giant pipe burst. Like one of the central main city pipes. Here's some blurry pictures because I was in a hurry to make sure the metro was still open (it was).

Mud everywhere.

The street pavement was broken.

Then I just had class from 8:30 to 10, but I stayed at school until 1. I met with Sofía to finalize my classes and get some other stuff sorted out. She found three more places where I can look for casadiellas, so I'll try those in the next couple weeks. Big thank you to Sofía for helping so much in the casadiella search. Then I worked on some stuff until 1 because Jisenia has class until 1 and we had our immigration appointments at 3 way in the outskirts of Madrid, so we went there together. Amy met us there.

Here's a bird we saw by the immigration office. There were like ten of these parakeet things. It was weird, like a bunch of birds escaped the pet store. This one is for Emily. (And also Jan... I'm not going to say it but you know what we say about this bird.)

This one is for Liam--a lizard outside the immigration office.

When I had my appointment they told me the Consulate in Chicago messed up my visa--everyone act surprised. Basically they put that my visa had been approved but they hadn't given it to me. But I am here in the country and I was there at the appointment with my passport with my visa in it, so that was clearly fake news. But they couldn't proceed with my residency application without that being fixed on their end. They told me to come back some other day, so I'm going back tomorrow to try again. I will be 0% surprised if it's still not resolved by tomorrow, but the good news is it doesn't really affect anything. I can still leave and reenter the country, etc.

After that I ran some errands. My credit cards have been working fine in stores, but not online, so I had to go pay for some tickets in person. (See, the immigration appointment... my credit cards not working... Spain isn't all glamorous. Only like 98% fun and games.) Anyway I liked these buildings.

Also liked these buildings.

I walked past the alpargata store where I got my alpargatas when I lived in Oviedo and we visited Madrid!!! I didn't go in--I was on a mission--but another day.

Then I went home. I had a really fun bus ride. There was a big group of Italian tourists sitting by me (I love Italian). There was a toddler in the front of the bus who wouldn't stop yelling "Puta!" There were two little girls who sat right in front of me, and we were facing each other, and they were alking to each other in their cute little kid Spanish voices. Both of them kept staring at me (btw staring is very normal and accepted and not rude in Spain). So I stared back at them and then I waved, and they waved back. And it turns out they live in my building!

When I walked in the house, Susana told me that she had parked her car in a garage that had flooded because the pipe burst :( So she lost her car. She showed me some crazy videos of how high the water level was (it dropped a lot by tonight). Then she told me she was going to go do a radio interview to talk about her car and asked if I wanted to come see, and I said yes. Here she is doing that.

I also lost my phone service and I assumed it was because of the pipe (0% a big deal, obviously), but it happened to a bunch of other kids in my program who don't live in my neighborhood, so we had to figure that out. (I'd say we're still at 98% fun and games though.)

I bought another melon half while I was waiting for Susana's interview to start. This whole thing was less than €2.50. I love it here. Also Susana's dad was there too, hanging out. He gave me two lemons because he saw my melon and I told him I love fruit. Thank you Esteban. He also told me he could hear I have a little bit of a Caribbean accent when I speak Spanish which I love to hear.

Then we went in the garage to look at Susana's car.

Susana's car is all the way in the back corner. And again, the water level was dropped a lot. The pipe burst at 2AM, and this is 8PM.

Then Susana and I walked around and she got groceries. I got a new boyfriend because I ran in the grocery store two minutes before they closed because I needed a Magnum bar (Ryan: necessity), and the grocer told me, "Dos minutos corazón." I need everyone to stop flirting with me fr. (I also need everyone to know that I'm joking. The blog is extending past my target audience of my family and Mermaid Princesses etc. to the likes of the IU study abroad office (hello, welcome) so for anyone who doesn't know me please don't take me seriously.) Anyway, secured the Magnum bar but the grocer didn't give me extra change, so I'm sticking with the fruit stand man. And I like fruit better anyway. This Magnum bar is a sentimental thing for me I think. But I mean also it's ice cream, so it's got that going for it too, obviously.