It was bound to happen eventually...

i'm good today. really. i just have to preface this post from last night. haha :) i'm sure i'll be frustrated again when i get back to the house, but it's ok. today was awesome. we had coffee with Tep today and it was rad. we sat in the coffee shop for 3 HOURS! haha. sweet times. school starts tomorrow!!!! YEEE! :) i'm not sure what that means...but. yeah. :)

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 30 de Enero, 2008

11:32pm (4:32pm Denton time)

ok so I think I just experienced my emotional semi-breakdown. I’m not sure it’ll be the last. Or maybe that wasn’t even it? I don’t know. I think I’m just really hating being here alone. I mean, I’m not really here alone. Cait and Katie are here, but at the same time… most of the people who I love the most, and who love me the most, are nowhere near me. I can try to call (when it works?) or email or instant message (when I can find internet connection)…but that is so random and far between… and when I do, the time difference is so off that it’s seriously inconvenient for you guys…

I miss Aaron a lot. I just called him, but he was in class. Sorry about that, again, by the way, Aaron…

As soon as I heard his voice I started crying for some reason. I was trying not to let him know that I was (how did I do? Haha) because I knew he was in the middle of class and he needed to go. But as soon as we hung up, I started bawling. I can’t really stop now. There’s no way I’d be able to get through a conversation with my mom or dad… jeez. I’m ridiculous.

I’m just so sick of being here in this house, I think. It’s so harsh. There’s almost no loving interaction. Or at least of what I see. She’s always yelling or harping on the kids, and she never even really talks to me unless its to tell me how to do/clean/eat something… other than that I’m just like a machine that goes in and teaches her kids. And even then, it’s my fault if they don’t do well, even if it’s because her little boy is burnt out by the time he gets to me so he can’t/won’t focus on anything I try to tell/teach him…

Maybe that’s why God has me here, but at the same time, I think I’m just so used to living in such a love-filled environment (my home, so many awesome friends around, my church, my family, etc.) that this is absolutely killing me. I’m alone most of the day and night, and the time that I am interacting with other people, it is so high-stressed and irritating that I can’t wait to be alone again.

I just really miss Aaron.

I just wish that he was here.

I’m thinking that I’ll probably not stay for the full three months. The initial reason is money. It’s costing a lot more just to live than I expected. But this doesn’t setting isn’t really encouraging me to search high and low for ways to stay, you know?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love being in spain. I seriously love it. I just don’t know how much longer I can be in this house and away from the people that I love. I feel like a kid counting the days until I move away to college… only I graduated from that a year ago…

I don’t know. Please keep me in your prayers. I just need to get over myself… I’m sorry for the rant. When school starts, maybe it will distract me more. I’ll have more to do with my time. Sorry, again.

Goodnight (well, for me. Happy Dinnertime for you)…

Love,denisie

ok. just a few more important photos to upload right now before i have to get headed home for tutoring... :)

also, i know a few of you have been asking for my address while i'm here in spain. i put it in a "note" on facebook if you want that. if you dont have facebook, just email me and i can send it to you! :)

love you guys and miss you all terribly. i'm so blessed to have such awesome friends and family even from an ocean away!!!! seriously. i'm praying for you all constantly and i'm so blessed by each of you. i hope that you are aware of that :)

Mucho Amore,
Denisie

This is the day that the girls hung came over for our slumber party! Haha those pictures are ridiculous…i'll post sometime soon. but these pictures are for our dear ones who aren’t here with us at the moment…

Miss Lindsey, the third of we three…

(oh, p.s. random fact… baby bangs …see above, haha… are so in here in spain! EVERYONE has them! Its so funny! Also there is an unreal number of guys with the most terrible mullets I’ve ever seen in my life. No joke. Oh jeez…. Yeah.)

And next two are for the one and only, our personal favorite… Leanne Hotface Mcgee (don’t worry, you won’t get the pictures. It’s apparently an inside joke between them…J):

leftovers from last post.

i think it was telling me something like i had too many picture up on one post? i dont really know since it was in spanish... haha. anyways. here are a few more from the last picture post:

this is the view from my balcony. the metal thing is the walking bridge that i walk on to get to the bus stop every morning. :)

this is the view straight down from my balcony. that's our "backyard"?

this is the view from my balcony at night. well, really early morning, i guess. i took this that first night when i woke up at 4am and couldn't go back to sleep until about 7:45am. haha :)

Picture update numero dos! Our first week in Madrid:

Here are some more pictures for you! Enjoy!

Check out my HUGE bed! it's actually two twin mattresses put together on one bed frame. that's like a queen bed, right? something like that... anyways. it looks so comfy!!! (tricky little buggar. that's not at all the case. ha!)
also, i dont know if they could have picked a better decor for the room (the entire house actually). i LOVE it. if i were going to decorate it, i would totally be using the same furniture and stuff! :) love it.

that's my desk with a great view. the window/door to the little balcony/terrace thing is right in front of my desk. pic of that in a second... (the doorway to the right of the desk goes into the bathroom.

there's my ol' bano! double sinks for little ol' me! i need a friend to share with ;)

faceoff! my toilet and bede... i dont know that i will try it. part of me wants to just to say that i used a bede. i am, after all, living in europe... but still. that just weirds me out. spraying water on my butt?? no thank you... i take showers for that... you know??

no central heat. radiators in every room that they hang their towels and stuff on! dont they know that those things catch on fire?! i dont let mine touch. the thought of my room burning makes me a bit uneasy... i dunno why...
this is my tv stand/dresser that i'm not allowed to use because it has paloma's stuff in it. haha.
also the closet is full of her stuff too. i have about 4 little drawers and a little spot in the huge closet space in the room for my stuff. haha.

this is the view from bed. check out the freaking light fixture! i love it :) i think it's even prettier in person. these pictures make it look kinda dull...
ok. now i'm going to try and let you get a feel for the house (townhouse?) picture, if you will, about 7 stories that are kind of staggered. so kind of 7 Half-stories? i dont really know how to explain it. but here are some pictures taken from each landing of the stairwell that goes on for days... haha. the first one is from my floor, right outside my door looking down the staircase towards the children's floor. i forgot to take pics of above my floor, but there are two more landings above my room. one is the room entrance and the next higher one is the "play room" which is pretty much just used for when their tutors come over. they study up there.

this is a view from where the last picture ended. turn that corner on the stairs, and you get the children's rooms and bathroom.

then i turned to the right and took this picture from children's floor which looks down to Paloma's room/floor (the mom).

this shot is from paloma's floor. just turning the corner from the last picture.

turn the corner at the end of the last photo, and you are looking towards the dining room with the kitchen on your left. the dining room has not been used since i've been here... maybe they use it sometimes when their dad is home? we'll see. he comes back in a month or two? eh.

this is the tiniest kitchen. seriously. the chairs are kept hanging on the wall when the kids are not eating. otherwise you can't get around the table... TINY!!! there's a little stool that i sit on. As you can see, there is never "family dinner". Very rarely are even the three of us in there at the same time. it's usually just me and one child at a time. studying while they scarf down some food before they go back to studying more...

this is where they hang the chairs that the children use. my stool is kept just below the hanging chairs.

this is the very rarely (if ever?) used dining room.

I live in Spain...weird...

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 28 de Enero, 2008

11:13pm (4:13pm Denton time)

I got to talk to Aaron for a few minutes today. We’ve pretty much worked out to where we get to talk for a few minutes on Mondays and Fridays… It’s never long enough and Monday to Friday is a really long time without hearing his voice. Sorry if that’s sappy for you to hear or if you’re slightly gagging at reading that, but you’ll just have to get over that problem. Deal? ;) sweet.

Now that we’ve got that under control…

There is a chance that Aaron may be able to visit me here in Madrid over UNT’s spring break. Then again there is a very good chance that he may not be able to. Even with a SERIOUSLY awesome airline hookup (standby which is about a good thousand dollars less expensive than a normal ticket. Maybe more than that?)… money is still a really tight thing considering a place to stay while here and provisions and stuff… it can get pretty costly… especially for a final semester college student, you know?

I’m praying so hard that he either gets a new AEWSOME job that he loves and that pays him what he’s worth (can anyone really afford to pay him that? He’s freaking awesome at what he does… anyone looking for a fabulous logistics/supply chain managing mind… call him. Seriously.) so that he can afford on his own to come and visit me… OR that someone just randomly decides that they really want to give him several hundred dollars (say…around $600?) because he’s so awesome. Haha J either one will do, I think J. I think that spring break is probably the week right before my birthday, too… so that would pretty much be the best present I could EVER get in my life if he came to see me. Man. You have no idea how hard I’m praying for that.

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 29 de Enero, 2008

10:41pm (3:41pm Denton time)

I’m getting extremely irritated with this woman. I am starting to hate tutoring time. I’m praying for completely unnatural patience and that she will just shut up for once. She’s a control freak and its seriously driving me crazy. Also, I don’t know what she’s thinking, but if her son is not learning as much as she would like him to, it’s definitely not my fault… I’m not going to shove this stuff down his throat while he throws fits. If he does, I wait for him to chill out before I move on. I’m not in spain to babysit children throwing fits because their mother shoves 8million years of studying down their throats every single afternoon. Good lord, woman. Chill out. Go drink your wine and smoke your gross cigarettes (in the house, no doubt where you can give us all asthma attacks… yeah. Your son has asthma and you’re going to smoke in the house. Nice.).

Bah. Sorry. This afternoon I wondered how possible it would be fore me to find somewhere else to live… and how soon I could do it… but seriously. I’ll get over it. I prayed for patience last night… maybe God wants me to learn it instead of just handing it over to me. Either way…

We got our Abono passes today! Finally! The Abono is the Metro/Buss pass that is good for the entire month. We went ahead and got our passes for February and I can’t wait to be able to use it. They are good for unlimited trips on both the busses and metros. Right now we are having to buy “diez viajes” which are good for… you guessed it, 10 trips. They are almost 7 euros a piece and an average day is at least 2-4 trips…so…yeah. They’re adding up. (haha I made myself think of Kevin…the office…after I just wrote that last sentence. )

Katie and I also signed up for class today! We’re in the same class so that’s awesome. Caitlin is not going to do it since she just got finished Spanish four in December. Katie and I, on the other hand, haven’t had Spanish in about 2 years now, so we definitely want to get in on at least an hour a day. Our first class is Friday morning at 10:30am. Wish us luck! We’re really pumped about it. I’m actually really excited about it. Sorry I think I’ve mentioned that a lot… eh.

So…I’m watching CNN right now and its kind of reminding me of hangin out at the orange house or something. Haha. I never watch sports and that’s all that is on right now. It’s world sports updates and stuff. J I couldn’t care less about this stuff, but it’s the only English station that I get here…so…here I am, listening to sports. It’s actually been good because I used to be so up on current events and stuff, but since college I basically know nothing. Awesome. It’s really good to know what’s going on in the world again. Especially with the presidential election coming up.

I walked around the area that our house is today for a while to see if I could jack any wifi. I’d had no success around the house and stuff, so I decided to broaden my scopes… ;) I walked around almost the whole place and nothing would connect. I finally found this one space where I could connect! I almost didn’t believe it! Unfortunately it wasn’t at any of the many benches that are around here. Of course not. Haha J I had to sit on the edge of this big potted plant next to the entrance to the area. Right by the gate. Haha. It was really actually kind of funny. But the awesome part about it was that when I checked my google mail, I Chad Farmer messaged me on the google instant messaging thing. I love that thing! J haha and then I noticed that Aaron was logged on to his mail too!!! It was so awesome! So I got to message with Aaron, Chad, and Gooch (who was in class sitting right next to chad! Haha) for a few minutes. Unfortunately my computer connection died before I could say goodbye, so guys, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry that I hung up on you. Totally didn’t mean to do it!!!

Ok. I’m going to see if I can prepare pictures at home and then just upload like I do with my updates. That way you can actually get pictures before I get home… haha

Ok here goes: hope this works!!!

nope. didnt work. blast. oh well. i'll upload some more. :) the good old fashioned way. oh yeah.

and again, three hours later...

so my computer battery kicked the bucket earlier and i have honestly been walking around Madrid looking for anyplace that had wifi so that i could plug in this baby. my goal for today was to finally upload pictures and get caught up with all of that...so...
PLUS all of the intense walking is good for me! :) hooray! haha :)
ok i'm now going to attempt to upload a booty load of pictures... we'll see how well this works out!
i'll just "start from the very beginning...a very good place to start" :)
Aqui! Para tu!

this is the first time we got kicked off the plane... (i'm BOR D and katie is CAT K) not too bad...

this was the plane first plane we didnt get on. the one caitlin is on... this is just before she left us.


this is our friend, Rob. He is a bike policeman inside the airport! haha :)

he bought us both toothbrushes because our mouths were grody feeling after sitting in DFW for the entire day! He was SO COOL!!!


so i went in search of a starbucks that was not supposed to be very far away... its wasnt. at all. i just happened to walk WAY past it THREE times before i finally found it hiding back in a remote corner! who does that??? its just cruel! to see so many people walking around with starbucks cups and not being able to find it... boo :) haha


suck we're still here. this was very many hours after we arrived at the airport around 10 am that morning... MANY hours... haha


ok. holy cow... so there was this lady. she worked at the airport... with my own eyes, i see her peek in the trash can, pull out a USED (do i need to add that??) burker king cup, take off the lid, throw the lid BACK away, and take the cup down to the burger king TO GET A FREE REFILL!!!! WHAT THE HECK???? HAHAHAHAHA!!! this is our reinactment of that trash lady




so we decide to grab some dinner at tgifridays since we're starving and still have to wait and be told that we cant get on the last flight of the day...


at least we got really yummy deserts! :)


the next morning (saturday) - extremely early... if we dont get on this first flight, we are basically screwed because they CANCELED the last FIVE flights from dallas to atlanta for the day because of the freak snow/ice storms! yeesh! but we're so hopeful! its lookin good so far!
(and, yes...we're wearing the same things as the first airport day because all of our luggage is already in Atlanta even though we are still in Dallas!!! haha)


ok. we DID get on the flight to atlanta! hooray!!! yes! we were SO relieved! so on the flight to atlanta...there was this guy sitting across the aisle from me. he was OUT way before the plane even took off. he had his ipod on, and when the stewardess tried to wake him up so that he could turn it off while we got in the air, he just kinda flopped around like he was DEAD or something!!! drool was dripping from his mouth! it was so weird!!!! the guy was so out, that he slept the entire flight and didnt even STIR until we landed! i wonder if he was on something... it was so strange.... seriously....


one frustrating thing about waiting in airports for entire days at a time is that you have to pay for effing internet because of the stupid "hotspots" (yeah right. i'm not paying for that. rude!) AND it's almost impossible to find outlets to charge your cell phones or your computers! so... in the food court area of the atlanta airport (where we had to wait from 9am, when our dallas flight got there, until 7pm, when our madrid flight left atlanta...), we found plugs!!! YEAH!


we also found panda express! YES! it's probably my favorite fast food Chinese place ever :) haha i know... weird. but i love it!!!

ok i'm going to start a new post. i'm scared something's going to happen and i'll lose this whole thing. oh lord. may it never be... haha :)

finally more wifi! holla!

ok. a few things before i post the latest blog entries...
1. i have seriously spent the past 30 minutes trying to get the wifi to actually connect. dang wasted computer battery! but alas it is here! yeah! :)
2. i just saw a guy that looked SO MUCH like our friend Micah Kinnard that i seriously thought it was him for a split second and then realized that i was in spain. there's no way he's here, right?? yeah. anyways. plus this guy's hair was way too short to be micah. there's no way micah would cut his! haha
3. i'm sitting on a bench. same bench by the bus stopthat i was at a few days ago. it's my new fav. haha... anyways. there is definitely something moving around in the bushes behind me... some little critter. i'm going to assume it's a cute, sweet little bunny rabbit. or maybe a pigeon that's playing hide and seek with his friends :)
4. there is a guy that works for the city of madrid cleaning up the park area that i am at (raking the dirt. haha) but he keeps talking to me randomly. it is not a great conversation because my spanish sucks big time but we did talk about madrid (sol y moncloa), florida, and my awesome boyfriend :) so thats cool. haha
5. also i saw eduardo (remember the neighbor that is my age?)'s brother on the bus this morning! we sat next to each other and actually had a semi conversation, too! so that was really cool. i like being able to communicate. i cant wait for school to help with that! :)

ok. here are the posts :) i'll try to upload some pics too!

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 27 de Enero, 2008

6pm (11am Denton time)

Ok. Its been a couple of days.

Yesterday was SO much fun. Man. And I didn’t even leave the house except to meet the girls (Katie and Caitlin) at the bus stop by my house. Haha

The family is gone for the long weekend to their (CASTLE!!) country house about an hour and a half away from here, so the girls came over to keep me company/spend the night away from their kiddos for a night. We were going to go into Madrid in the evening, but we decided to just hang around the house and hang out with Ani! J it was so fun! (Ani is our maid, if you don’t remember). She’s exactly the same age as me, we found out! She turns 24 on March 6^th or something like that (my birthday is on the 24^th for those of you that didn’t know that). So that’s really cool. Ani was cooking in the kitchen for a while, so we went in to talk with her and she let us try this dish that she was making (I cant remember what it was called. Dang). It was made with these white beans, she boiled them till they were soft, then she mashed them (they looked like mashed potatoes then). On top of the lentils, she put some sort of mixture with maybe tomato sauce? (it was reddish) and cooked onions… it was really good!

THEN, after that, she started making these little donut type things! In Romania (that’s where she’s from. Isn’t that awesome? J) she said that in Romania they are called Gogosh (Guh- go- sh). They’re like homemade donuts except they don’t have holes J she basically deep fried the dough that she made from scratch (flour, egg, yeast… is that all? Maybe?). she cut them out of the dough using a drinking glass like a cookie cutter and placed them into hot olive oil on the stove (they use olive oil, and LOTS of it, for EVERYTHING, I’m noticing!) and they fried. Then she turned them over and when they were done, pulled them out and sprinkled vanilla on them! The vanilla was so cool. It wasn’t a liquid. It looked almost just like cinnamon and sugar! So weird! J

Anyways. she is so awesome. J we hung out with her for a few hours at least! It was just in the kitchen, the three of us trying to speak Spanish, and her helping us and being SO patient with our Spanglish. Haha. We found out she’s from Romania, and she only moved to spain a year and a half ago. When she moved here she knew no Spanish at all! Not even one word, she said! Now she is definitely fluent! Its cool. She was telling us about the family. Haha. She’s really funny. I’m glad she’s here. For sure.

So we hung with Ani for a while and then we just had dinner and watched a movie and the south Carolina presidential primary (Katie knows so much about the presidential race and it’s inspiring! It makes me want to know everything I could possibly know about the candidates! Unfortunately I don’t have the internet, so I’m not able to do that… that’s ok, though), and just talked forever. It was good.

Oh, speaking of the presidential election, does anyone know what we do/how we go about registering to vote while we’re out of the country? Do we go to the embassy or what? Just curious…

Anyways. yesterday was a good day. J

Today we woke up too early and went to El Rastro! That was one of the things that I had on my list to do here in spain. Probably the top thing, actually. Haha

It wasn’t as great as I was expecting, but it was still really cool. Its basically just a HUGE flea market set up in the streets. Caitlin has a bunch of pics from it, so I’ll have to jack them from her soon to update.

OH…. Aaron… I’m just going to say that I totally got you the ultimate gift from Spain that you could ever get. Haha. I’m so proud of it! J hahaha it’s actually kinda silly but its so freakin awesome and I think you’ll really actually like it. I hope! J

OH another thing that we accomplished from my list to do in Spain: we had churros y chocolate at this corner café place that we found when we got lost just exploring the streets of Madrid after El Rastro! J so awesome! Man. It’s basically hot chocolate with these long, skinny pastries that you dip in the chocolate. Only the hot chocolate is SO THICK you wouldn’t believe it. I tried to take a picture of it dripping off the spoon, but I’m not sure it makes it clear enough. It’s basically like a melted chocolate bar! Almost that thick! So good though. Haha. And for 2 euros (each), they gave us each enough to serve two or three people. Haha. Its so rich that you can’t even try to eat all of it, and they give you an entire coffee cup full of the chocolate with 4 of the churros! No way. I don’t know if any of us even ate half of our stuff! We were all sick from eating too much sweet/chocolate by the time we left. Haha J

We took a nap when we got home this afternoon and I think I could have slept straight through the whole night. Oh man. Now I have one of those “I slept during the day and now I feel like I have a sinus headache” headaches J haha.

But I learned how to make espresso and Caitlin had about 3 café con leches last night I think (that’s like taking SIX shots of espresso. Hahahaha!). She was basically cracked out on espresso. It was interesting because she had not gone to bed until 4am the night before and was up at 8am! Hahaha. Silly nina! J haha

I love those girls. So fun. I’m so glad they’re here. For sure J

Food has been interesting this weekend since the family’s gone. She (paloma) showed me where they had put several partially prepaired foods in the fridge for me to eat while they were gone, so I’ve just been mixing it up every night. Haha. Last night I made us some spaghetti with chopped up turkey in it and toast and butter. For breakfast yesterday I had some of the leftover Spanish omelet J yum. For dinner/lunch just now I had pretty much a baked potato with a hardboiled egg and more chopped up turkey and butter with salt and pepper… kind of interesting, I know… but I’m using what I’ve got! Just call me the Iron Chef. HA! Oh man. No way.

Anyways. I think that’s all for today. The girls left about an hour ago, so I think I’ll probably just chill at home again tonight. Tomorrow is the saint’s holiday that I mentioned before. It’s the reason the ninos don’t have school. So I think I’ll probably just take the bus into Moncloa, and take my computer to that little park by the bus stop and do some catching up there. I know I say this stuff a lot, but it really is just so strange to not have internet available whenever I want it. Even weirder that I don’t get on the internet every day.

I can’t wait to upload some pictures tomorrow! I’m going to go out until my computer runs out of juice. Maybe I’ll recharge and go back again. Who knows! Haha I think my computer might even get about 2 hours worth of charge on one go! That’s kinda cool. Hopefully!

Ok. Te amo muchisimo!

Jdenisie

P.s. OH MY GOSH I almost forgot to mention… hahaha…ok, so we definitely have been doing a TON of walking every single day (not even including all of the millions of stairs I have to climb any time I go to another room in the house, here! J), so it is a normal thing to expect any time we go out. Not a big deal. Ok… so on the way to El Rastro today, we are headed out of the metro and we are just following the crowd to get to the market. We get to the escalators to get out, and they are absolutely packed. So… duh… take the stairs, right?

HA! Wow. We step out of the line for the escalator (there is NO turning back nowJ) and look up to see how many stairs we will be climbing. HOLY CRAP. I think terrible words that should not be uttered from our lips were flying through each of our heads at that moment… oh man. I think that staircase was at least 150 steps high… oh man. Our quads were BURNING and we were SO out of breath by the time we reached the top. Hahahahaha it was ridiculous J and great.

Oh also. Not interesting at all, but I think it’s kinda funny. We stopped at the little convenience store/pharmacy/shop that is right inside the gated entrance to the place I live (like townhouses kind of?) I need to take pictures of the outside of home.

Wow… bill Clinton looks so old!!! I just saw him on CNN for a second. Good lord…

Ok. Sorry. Anyways. back to the story. Stopped at the shop to get milk because we drank so much of it last night with our coffees and I was worried we would have none left after we made some today, so we got some more milk… later after the girls left (we didn’t even drink the milk…) I found where they keep the rest of the juices and milks that aren’t open! Dang. Haha. So we spent money unnecessarily. Dang. Oh well. J

That’s all… J

Later (9:30pm …2:30pm denton time):

Just a thought: I’m super excited about Spanish courses beginning on Friday. For once, studying sounds really good. I’m glad that there will be something to take up time. It’s a great time when I’m gallivanting about the city, but after studying with the kids on the weekends there’s a lot of down time with not much to do since I can’t get online. Oh well. J either way, I’m excited for school to start. I’m positive that when I’m actually in the middle of the course, I’ll be sick of studying and my brain will want to explode, but for now… I’m pretty ready J haha.

We go to sign up and pay for the course on Tuesday.

just at taste until i can upload the rest of them :) amore!

Bus stop WiFi when i should be on the bus going home...

ugh! finally! i found some wifi by the bus stop! now i'm late... haha but i had to upload this before i exploded. haha :) te amo muchisimo!

~d

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 22 de Enero, 2008

4:36pm (9:36am Denton time)

Sometimes I wonder if this lady is for real… paloma, the mother of the house that I live, is not very helpful and it is very frustrating. I’ll ask her how to get places, or where I should get things, and you would think that she would offer to help me figure it out, maybe? Or at least tell me something rather than…”hmm… maybe El Corte Ingles (the big mall type thing)? I don’t really know. Maybe there. I don’t know where you would buy a fan…” like that was a stupid question? Ugh. Also they don’t have a dryer here… she said, “people don’t use clothes dryers in Madrid. We don’t need them.” People do use them in madrid. She just doesn’t have one. My towel felt like I was drying off with a loofa this morning. I love line-dried things… wait. No….

Katie’s family seems so helpful. I’m a little envious. I feel, sometimes, like she doesn’t really care to help me with anything, regardless that this is my first time in this country and I obviously don’t speak the language. I’m just here to tutor the kids. Neat.

Speaking of the kids. I love them. They are so cool. Eduardo is 11 and Victoria is 12. they are so smart and funny! They study so much I don’t know how they don’t have a mental breakdown every single day. Seriously. They go to school from 930 to 530 every day. Then they come home and have a snack. After their snack, we study English. I work one hour with each child. While I’m with one, paloma is with the other one working on other homework. After homework, they bathe and they have dinner (not together. One and then the other. I am with each of them.). they have 30 minutes for dinner and the whole time that we are eating dinner, we are studying verbs. It is so structured. After dinner, they go straight back to studying, and that lasts until about 1030pm. They go directly to bed after homework/studying. This is every day. 5 days a week. The weekend is the only time they have to not think about studying and school.

They’re going to las vegas to visit their dad around the first week or second week of February. I’m so glad they have some time off from this schedule. I want my kids to know more languages than just English, but this is a little ridiculous. I just feel like they are going to be so burned out so quickly… I don’t know…

Anyways. I got off the bus ok today. That’s a great thing… yesterday I couldn’t figure out how to make the bus driver open the back door to let me off. He let a bunch of people on from the front door, but the back door never opened and he started going again… I had to run to the front of the bus to get him to stop again and let me off! That was horrible. I was rushing and talking in English because I was freaking out, “POR FAVOR! I NEED TO GET OFF!!!!!” yeesh…

Katie and I walked around Moncloa (the part of Madrid where the agency that we came over with has their office). I feel pretty familiar with that area now. It’s the same area that I walked around for hours yesterday, looking for wifi.

Oh! And I found an internet café over there that is pretty good. They already have the computers and you buy hours for one euro/ hour. And you don’t have to spend the whole hour at one time. You have an entire week to use up your hour. So that’s cool. Also, it’s in a shop that has Dunkin’ Coffee (exactly like Dunkin’ donuts…only… called coffee instead… haha) and subway. Then there are tables to eat at and a line of computers along the other wall.

We were supposed to meet up with Caitlin today, but Katie waited for an hour for her at the metro stop they were supposed to meet at, and never saw her… she doesn’t have a phone yet, so we have no way to contact her. I left a message with her host mom to call me on my cell when she got home, but she hasn’t called yet L tomorrow we’ll all meet (hopefully!) up in another part of Madrid called Sol. Apparently it’s like the real downtown of Madrid. I’ve felt pretty safe so far, so I hope that this part isn’t too bad. There are a lot of tourists at that part, though… so… yeah. And gypsies… I hope I don’t have any pickpockets or anything. That would be terrible

ALSO a terrifying thing is to be walking around Madrid and taking the bus home while carrying 170 euros in your purse… yeah. But it was fine. I figured it would be because it was fine yesterday. I’m just glad we got the atm to work!!! none of the 5 or so that we tried yesterday would give us any money!!! I finally tried this other bank (BBVA) this morning and I actually got money out. Praise Jesus. That was so stressful. Seriously. But I’m going to take Tep’s advice (she’s the contact that Caitlin made with that ministry that we’re going to look into) and take out a certain amount of money every month and then just budget the cash for myself at home and only take a certain amount with me every day. Unfortunately when I took out 150 euros today, it gave me 3 50s so… yeah. I’ll have to take 50 a few days… and then get change somehow. Haha.

Oh another cool thing is that there were about 3 accordion street players on the street this morning. J I like that. It’s cool.

Ok. I know there’s a lot more to write, but I’m written out for now. More later. I’m going to work on my budget now.

I need a hair dryer and a fan.

Also my mattress is terrible… you can feel every single spring in it and the pillows are so flat… I wish I had my temper-pedic (is that how you spell that?) pillow that the Powers gave me for graduation… I wonder how much that would cost to have sent over here… :/

Overall spain is great, though.

Oh yeah! Katie and I went in search of some of the language schools to see if we can afford any of them. The one that we found today wasn’t accepting any more students because we missed the entry deadline and it goes until june… so… yeah. There’s one near Sol where we’ll be tomorrow, so maybe that one will work out. If we can’t find one that we can afford, or one that will take us, then I think we’re going to try and get together and do some learning Spanish from CD’s thing… someone gave Katie a set before she left. We just desperately need to learn Spanish. This is ridiculous for us to know as little as we do… it’s hard to get around. And we feel stupid. Haha. I wish I had the internet at home, then I could just look up schools and how to get to them… man. I am so thankful for the internet in the states and how much it is at my disposal there… seriously.

Ok. Thanks for reading that novel! I love you all. Wish you were here to learn the city with me. It’s pretty fun J and tiring!

But… I have been taking my vitamins every morning (Kelley and mom. You’ll be proud). I do better taking them here, than I do at home… J

Peace out!

~d

OH! I totally almost forgot to tell you! Yesterday, I think I got griped at by this old lady on the bus! Hahaha it was really funny. I was sitting on the bus going home. I was so tired. I had been walking for (literally) several hours with a heavy bag on my shoulder and I was so ready to be home. Anyways. I put my feet up on the seat facing me since no one was around me or obviously sitting there. She started talking really fast and seriously to me in Spanish… I’m pretty sure, by her body language and gestures, that she was telling me to not put my feet up in the seat because if I do, then the next person to sit down will get their pants dirty with whatever is on my shoes (there was nothing)… haha. So I acted like I was wiping the seat off and put my feet on the ground. Haha… it was funny, I thought. I actually have no idea what she was saying… ;)

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 23 de Enero, 2008

8pm (1pm Denton time)

So, I pretty much feel terrible about being so gripy in my last entry. I went to El Corte Ingles today (the big mall type thing) and just kind of wandered for a while. I really needed to buy a hair dryer and I didn’t know where else to go, so I figured if they had things like department stores, surely someone would have a hair dryer and hopefully a fan… anyways, El Corte Ingles is so different. Its cool:

There are about 8 different floors and each floor is about as big (wide/long) as a Dillards or something in the states. There are escalators at each end going up and down. Each floor is a different department. Like the ground level is bags/purses/shoes/perfume/makeup. The lower level is the supermercado. I was so happy when I found a big sign that told what each level was, and even more ecstatic when I realized that I was staring right at the Spanish lists and the lists were in English right below it!!! Holla! J so I looked at what all the levels were (mens, including a men’s hairstylist, womens, with a womans stylist, houseware/electronics, juniors/stylish section, etc…) so I went straight for the electronics, of course. I found a hairdryer and a flat iron since the converters we brought totally don’t work, unfortunately. They work for all of a few minutes and then whatever we have plugged in blows. Yup. My sound machine that I am in love with that jen got me for Christmas blew in the first hour of me being here. My flat iron that jeff let me borrow blew this morning. Neat…

So anyways. I bought those two things ( I found both on sale…that was interesting.. haha) for about 40 euros (60 dollars. Ugh…) but It’s ok because I totally need those two things. And I’ll have them for the next time(s) that I visit Europe J I plan on coming every chance I get in my life. Seriously. It’s so cool. Only next time, Aaron’s coming. (sorry, AP, you don’t have a choice…hope that’s ok).

Ok. I’ve lost my place. I have no idea what I was rambling about…

Oh yeah! The fan. I feel bad… yes, yes.

So I was in the department with all of that, found the hair stuff, and was looking for the fan. I find the heaters, but don’t see fans ANYWHERE…so I set all of my bags down, pull out my little dictionary to figure out what the heck the Spanish word for fans is… (it’s vantiladores, by the way, in case you were wondering), and so I asked this lady about it… she was speaking extremely fast spanish to me, but I am pretty sure that she was telling me that no one really uses fans here in spain, so they don’t sell them. I asked, “Que usar cuado hace calor??” (what do you use when it’s hot??) she just told me ( I think…haha) that it doesn’t really get hot here, so really no one in the entire city sells them that she knows of… awesome… it’s ok though. One less expense. I’m pretty comfortable at night. Just in the afternoons when I get home, its extremely warm in my room since my window faces west and the sun is shining directly through the huge windows. Oh well. Win some, lose some, I guess.

Oh, by the way…the flat iron I just bought today and was so excited to use tomorrow? Yeah. It’s broken. Stupid. I have to take it back tomorrow. It was broken when I took it out of the box. Ugh…

Sick. Paloma’s smoking in the house again. I smell it. I absolutely hate this. When I asked her about the fact that she smokes, she told me that she does smoke but only in the living room by the doors that stay open, and that you can’t smell it anywhere in the house unless you are sitting right by her. I can assure you that the doors are not open right now. It’s cold. Also everything is above the living room. Smoke rises. Duh. You can totally smell it. Everywhere. Blech.

Oh well. I’m in freaking spain. I can live with smoke for three months. I’m in spain. Serisouly.

OH! Heath ledger died??? What the heck??? Katie got like three emails saying that last night… what the heck are they gonna do for batman movies now??? He seems (from the previews) to be the perfect joker, no? anyways…

-The song that starts, “angel of mercy, how did you find me…” just came on and it makes me think of aaron b/c he was singing it the whole week that I was leaving (not singing it to me. Just that it was in his head all week so I got to hear it all week… J) anyways. totally unrelated. Just made me think of him… yet again. You all wanted to know that. I know J

Man, I know that I say this a lot, but these kids are so ridiculously busy I cant even believe it… jeez. Also I found out today that each of them does THREE different sports every week!!!

Eduardo - hockey, tennis, golf

Veronica – tennis, golf, swimming

They both have math tutors, also, tonight, so I don’t think dinner is until like 9pm maybe? Bah. This is so strange. I don’t like eating so late. I eat, and then I just want to go to sleep… this city is exhausting. Haha. Or maybe it’s just that I’m walking about a million and a half miles every day! J either way, my metabolism is absolutely through the roof. I am hungry so quickly after I eat, it’s ridiculous. I went to the Super Mercado today and got some special K bars (the box is in espanol. Its funny J also some mixed nuts, some fish-shaped crackers (not like goldfish…they have the flavoring on it kind of like oyster crackers in the states, I think). Oh and I got some juice boxes. Today I got a bottle of water with my lunch, so I kept the Aquafina bottle (also in Spanish…you’d think I’d be used to that already, but I don’t think I ever will be. Its funny to see things that I am so accustomed to seeing in English be in Spanish… yeah. Anyways…I’m ridiculous) and so I ‘m just going to keep refilling that bottle from the water pitcher in the kitchen every morning, and I’ll take some fish crackers, a juice box, and a special K bar in my bag every day. That way I’m not spending money on lunch every day. That would be killer. I would just come home for lunch, but it’s so inconvenient to do that when you have to take buses and metros and blah blah blah. And then if you want to go back out, you have to do the same thing and then still be home by 6 in time to teach until dinner/bed time… so I think I’ll just maybe ask Paloma about packing sandwiches or something? Especially if we start going to the Spanish school from 1030 to 1230 every day… we’ll see J

Ok. I write a lot… and theres still so much to tell. Sorry if the detail of these entries is totally boring for you. You don’t have to read them J they’re mostly, I guess, venting for myself. It’s strange to not have someone to talk to about everything every day. You know? Usually there are about 10 people to spread the stories out to every day so that not just one person has to hear the detailed version of my “interesting” life, but now you’re all stuck with it all. Just be thankful that I usually just don’t feel like writing stuff so you don’t have to hear a lot. J haha

Ok dinner! Yeah! And it’s only 830! More later. I’m sure.

…later (10:04pm –3:04pm denton time)

Ok… study time maybe is over now? Maybe? Eduardo is asleep on my bed right now. He’s so exhausted. His eyes are red and falling shut. He’s been studying for 4 hours straight now. Right through dinner like normal… I love these kids. Seriously. Eduardo and I have a handshake. It’s kind of a normal handshake and then you do the pound thing like from The Office where you make the explosion sound? You know? But we pound it and then bump our foreheads together and THEN make the explosion sound J he’s such a cool kid. Tonight aaron called me while we were having dinner (Eduardo and i) and so he got to talk to him for a minute or two. Eduardo loved it. I could tell from his face. It was really cool for him to have an older (American!) guy talking with him and asking him about himself. I also did Veronica’s hair tonight after her bath. I would have flat ironed it… but…yeah. Stupid broken things…

Also, something cool… I started praying for the meal the first night that we had dinner together (me and the kids) and so we’ve been saying the blessing before we eat every night and the kids want to pray too! They love it. Tonight I actually forgot to before dinner. Things were so crazy and different today with the tutors and all, but we were half way through the dinner and veronica said, “OH! Denise! We forgot to say the blessing!!!” J that was really cool, because then we all three went around and said a short little prayer at the table. Really cool.

I seriously love them. They are such cool kids! I’ll have to take some pictures and post them soon so that you can “meet” them.

Oh, mom… when you called the other day, it was Eduardo that answered. I know you couldn’t tell which one it was. Just thought you’d like to know J

Oh, and we went to see another school today. It was in the area of Sol. I think that I personally like the Moncloa area better (the area we’ve been in the past few days). It just makes me a little uneasy to have a lot of people just loitering around in an area, you know? Not really doing anything in particular, or if they are, they’re street vendors or beggars. Just makes me more nervous. The area seems a little less clean and a lot more touristy than moncloa. Maybe I’ll like it better when we spend more time there. I’m sure we will J anyways, we found that school and went ahead and took a placement exam. We’re not beginners at least! Haha. One step up J none of us knew past tense… haha. Dang…

Anyways. the price is just about 200 american dollars a month plus books but I think I’m going to do it. It seems pretty expensive, but if I’m in spain, I may as well be taking advantage of these opportunities. And I’ll practice every day that I’m here! Well, I’m working out my budget to see what kind of spending I’m looking at (average) and I think I’ll be able to swing it. No big spender here while I’m not getting income. That’s for sure. Haha.

OH…speaking of not spending much… new favorite store: BLANCO. It’s pretty much the Spanish version of Forever 21. I LOVE it. I got a brown clutch there yesterday for 2 EUROS!!! That’s like three dollars. Its awesome. I can’t remember if I already told you about that. Sorry, if I did.

Oh, and Lindsey, there are Zara’s EVERYWHERE! That’s the place you told us to go, yeah? I think so. They’re seriously on every street. Haha you should come J

Aaron, did you get your passport yet? I will forget to ask you in an email when I actually get to where I have internet, so I’m putting it here…. That’s all…

I love you!!!

~d

Madrid, Spain

La Casa de Santibanez

El 24 de Enero, 2008

7:10pm (12:10pm Denton time)

Ok only two things for now, which is good because dinner (cena!)’s in just 20 minutes! Yeah!!! I saw tomatoes and corn on the table. I think maybe for a salad type thing? J I’m glad. Everything the first few days was fried. I’m glad to have healthy alternatives now! Haha

1. Annie (the maid who lives downstairs with her boyfriend) works so much!!! She starts before 8am or maybe at 8? And she doesn’t finish until about 8 or 9pm! I just found out that she irons from about 5 or 530pm until about 8pm!!! What??? Goodness! She irons EVERYTHING. Sheets, towels, EVERYTHING. So strange… I guess since everything is line dried and that makes it pretty wrinkled… still. Weird…

2. FUNNY! And terrible… haha: Just now, I was having my study time with Eduardo and we were talking about Dirk Novinsky…. He kept calling his name Dick instead of Dirk… so I told him not to say that word because it was a bad word in English… BAD IDEA! Jeez. I should have known better. Hahaha. We spent about 10 minutes of our hour together looking up different English/Spanish words in order for him to figure out what it meant… oh man. Anyways. so I just came upstairs and I could hear him in the bathroom saying, “dickdickdickdick”…. Hahahahahahaha oh jeez. What the heck did I do???

I told him seriously not to say that in the united states and that it was extremely offensive. He wanted to know how much so and if they would take him to jail for saying it. I said, “no. they won’t take you to jail, but someone might punch you in the face for saying it to them.” Haha J

Is that wrong? Nope. I think not.

Funny? Yes.

Terrible? Yes….

The end for now.

CENA!!!! Yeah!!!! J

Later, at 11:15pm (4:15pm denton time)

Ok. Funny story that I have to write before I forget. Aaron, I know that you, in particular will love this story. This just goes to show how funny these kis are!! (the last story was eduardo’s funny story. This one is victoria’s… haha

So, I go downstairs and have dinner with Victoria and we head to her room about 9:40pm to start her English homework. On her way to her room, I noticed that she went into eduardo’s room for a moment. I didn’t know why. I figured it was just to grab an English book or something. They share some of them. A few minutes later, Eduardo comes into his room and Victoria goes in and whispers something in his ear. He makes a gagging, crying sound and lies, flailing about, on his bed with his head buried in his pillow. I think he’s crying.

Me: VICTORIA!!!! What in the world did you just say???

Victoria: (laughing hysterically) nothing…! J

Me: (to Eduardo, comfortingly) what did she just say to you??

Eduardo: she just tell me that she “PTHHHHH” (makes the fart sound) in my room!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

I said to Victoria: is that why you went in his room when we came upstairs just now??

Victoria: yes! JJJ

Oh my gosh… I cracked up!!!!

Victoria could not stop laughing for the first 10 minutes of her lessons. It was so funny! I told her that I was going to have to tell aaron about this. She was still laughing but yelled “NO!!!” hahaha J

I said, “it’s ok. He’ll just think you’re the funniest 12 year old girl in spain. J”

My kids are so cool! Hahahahahahaha

I love laughing with them. Ugh! I forgot to take pictures with them again today!!! I’ll try and remember to do it before they leave for the country tomorrow. They are going for a long weekend (Monday is some saint’s holiday or something) to their “Country House” which is actually a freaking CASTLE in some town about an hour and a half north of here… I took a picture of a picture of it that is framed in my freaking bedroom. Haha J it’s ridiculous. An actual castle… seriously… yeah.

J I love these kids.

I’m going to take my laptop to the park that we’re going to tomorrow. It’s a huge, beautiful park that was only open to royalty until the 1800’s. There is a huge lake/pond thing in the middle that I think you can rent rowboats for, too! J it’s supposed to be absolutely beautiful. I am seriously hoping that they have some wifi available out there…. Anywhere would be fantastic, really. I need to upload some pictures for you guys!!! J

~d