it's been forever...

Ok, so it is time to write more about life in Madrid, not because anything particularly interesting has happened, or because it has just been way too long, or because some of my fellow bloggers are putting me to shame, but because the Captain says so.

I do feel bad that it has been so long since my last update. My silence is due partly to the fact that my computer broke awhile ago and I have only just recently gotten a new one (thanks Mom!). But it's also because I have become pretty settled into my life here, which, though it doesn't make for interesting blog posts, is a good thing (I think). To make matters worse, I've been really bad about taking pictures lately, and I suspect the pictures are the most (if not the only) interesting part of this blog. That being said, I'll try to entertain you with a few anecdotes from the past month or so.

One interesting thing we did was take a really fun trip to Avila. A few weeks ago we had a long weekend, so Maureen, Emily, Justin and I decided to do a day trip there on Sunday. We'd read that you could take the Cercanias- which is the equivalent of the commuter rail- so we decided to meet Justin at the Atocha train station- which is sort of the equivalent of Grand Central/South Station and is only about a 15 minute walk from our apartment-naively assuming that the train would leave from there. After asking around at several ticket windows, we were finally told that the train to Avila actually leaves from the Chamartin station, way up in the northern part of the city. Not to worry though, if we took the Cercanias we could get there pretty quickly and still make the 11:00 train. Well, we were not about to be fooled by this advice. The Cercanias costs several euros more than the metro, and we were only about 47 stops away from Chamartin...

Needless to say, about an hour and a half later four proudly frugal but ticketless travelers shuffled out of the Chamartin station into some God-forsaken part of northern Madrid. Thankfully, the day was not ruined, as Justin knew of a cool- and free- photography exhibit taking place nearby, featuring the work of Rodchenko, a Russian revolutionary/ revolutionary Russian photographer. It was sweet.

So yeah, Avila was awesome- maybe we'll go again sometime.

The past two weekends have been fun but also somewhat lonely because Maureen and Deirdre keep ditching me. Last weekend was especially sad because I had to miss my cousin Aileen's wedding. M & D- being bridesmaids and all- of course flew home for it but sadly for me it was just not in the cards. Despite feeling sad about this all weekend, I did have fun hanging out with Emily, Justin and their friends Mateo and Ashley. This weekend, mis primas are in London, a trip I opted out of because London is mad expensive and I have already been there. Although I again wish I could be there with them, they are also missing out on a good time here: Last night Emily and I went to a Finnish Christmas party! Molly, Emily's friend from Tufts who is also an auxiliar, lives with a Finnish girl whose husband was visiting this weekend, so they decided to throw a party. It included Finnish pastries, which are delicious, and Finnish vodka, which is strong. There was also a traditional Finnish gift exchange. I guess those were really the only Finnish elements to it, but it was very fun. Also, Finnish is a really interesting language to listen to.

And with that, this post is finnished! (sorry) I am going to start taking lots of pictures and I will put them up very soon!