The only obligation I had today was a welcome reception for American exchange students studying at Complutense. It wasn't until noon, and I'm used to getting up early now, so I was awake by 8 and had plenty of time to take a shower, work, hang out, etc. before the reception. The reception was kinda wasted. It just wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be like a mixer situation where we would talk and hang out, and instead it was an hour and a half presentation that was not incredibly helpful. But I did learn that there's going to be a Renaissance Faire just outside Madrid in October, so that made the whole thing worth it.
Afterwards, we got split up into groups to talk with a Spaniard studying English so that we could start to set up conversation hours, half in English/half in Spanish, so we each get to practice the language we want to. That was also pretty wasted because there were like five Spaniards and sixty of us, and we went to go get coffees at the cafe, and it was obviously chaos. The machine wouldn't take our order, there was nowhere to sit inside, it was hot (don) outside, there was no shade, there was a million people. It was very much a me siento muy overwhelmy overwhelmy afternoon. But after we couldn't find anywhere to talk, I went with the people in my program who were with the same Spaniard as me to the campus bookstore. It's the tiniest room in the world, which is funny compared to what a merchandise machine a US university is. I got stickers. Then we went to lunch. (Ben, Alexia, me, Izzy, Lauren, Cailee, Rachel.)
Here is my lunch. (Jacob messaged me right after I posted the blog that this is soba.)
After lunch I went home, worked some more (work is going to be my catch-all phrase for like homework, event/trip planning, responding to emails, writing the blog, etc.). Then Larissa and I hung out for awhile. We went on a walk in the giant park behind our house. Here is a greenhouse we saw on the way. Susana had told me there was a giant greenhouse like a twenty minute walk away, but I hadn't come across it before.
Then we sat at the little cafe in the park. Vibes.
I got a milkshake. I saw it on the menu and it sounded so good that I impulse ordered it. It actually wasn't that good. It was pretty thin. But you live and you learn.
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