new people

Hey hey, here I am again.
We are doing so much every day so I will keep you up to date.

Tuesday we went to the new 'parque rio'. It is designed by some Dutch student from Maastricht. It is a very beautiful park. we went to the playa area. We rented 2 beach chairs and a parasol for just 3 euros and made it a really relax day. There was a water playground really nice to cool down a bit and for having so much fun! Unfortunately we forgot to protect ourselves and burned so much.




The day after we went with our new roomies to ‘El Escorial’. We left the house at 11 am, first with the metro to Atoche Renfe, there we bought our train ticket, it supposed to be 2 euros but instead of this it was 6,70. A pity but not a big deal, after a beautiful travel through a beautiful landscape we arrived in Escorial. Then we started walking up, it was really mountainous, and first arrived at the house and gardens of a prince. Compared to the beautiful buildings, castles and cathedrals in Madrid this ‘palace’ was really boring and the garden was nice but except from the little fountain it was also quite boring. We walked further to the monestario. It was a very impressive building from the outside.
On Wednesday it had to be for free, they didn’t told us that this was just from 5pm till 8pm. It was 3pm so we had to wait 2 hours. We went to a terrace took some vino tintos, it’s normal to get olives and chips when you order a drink, and played some card games. Finally we stood in the row in front of the monestario it was really notable that we lowered the average age which was 80 before we came. An old lady told me that I would not queue because she was already waiting half an hour to get in. I thought shut up please, I am waiting already two hours. Just kindly smiled to the old lady and let her stand before me. I thought that the live spell in Spain was ‘manaña manaña’. Finally we got in for free woohooo. There was a kind of a tour defined through the whole monestario. First there were some paintings, kitchen equipment and wall paintings. Nice to see but not that special. Than we came at the coffins. A big round room with green marble and a lot of gold.
Also the other corridors were full of coffins. That was so impressive. We got hungry and walked a bit faster so we did the tour in just one hour what is really fast for such a big building. I thought it was really beautiful but the others thought it became really boring. We went to the supermarket to get some food and then we went back home.

The next day we went to our University for the first time. We first had a welcome word, it was easier to understand the Spanish speaking woman who talked about Spanish courses than all the other people who spoke about some very important things in English. Than we got a guided tour through the University. It was nice to meet people from over the whole world. When the tour was finished I tried out the canteen. First you have to choose something on a screen, I wanted ‘bolsa patatas ’ and then you got an coupon for your order and you can pick up your order. It seemed that a ‘bolsa patatas’ were not French fries but just chips. Oeps, didn’t knew luckily I was allowed to change this. I got it with garlic sauce so clearly handmade and so very very nice. Than we had to choose our subjects at 4pm. So old fashion. First you had to make your choice on paper and choose the group you want. Then you had to wait in a row and go to the desk. The fill in everything you wrote down on paper. If the group is full you can choose for antother group or for another subject. Then you got a paper and went to the other desk. There you have to transfer every subject plus code plus time plus group on another paper which they called your learning agreement and then you got a stamp and a sign. How extensive can you make it! In the 21st age we have internet and computers.
Then we got our ESN card. We had to wait an hour for it but we were chatting with a really nice guy from the United states so that was really nice.

We subscribed ourselves for the international dinner as well.

Friday I bought my agenda and notebooks. Further we did really nothing.

Saturday we participated the Gymkhana, a really difficult word for just a game, organised by ESN. We were in a group with Mitchel who also came from Tilburg University. We didn’t met him before so that was nice. Besides we also met a lot of other people from over the whole world. Also some French people, so nice to speak French again but also a bit hard now I learned Spanish too I mixed it up all. Unfortunately I didn’t met a native Spanish speaking person. I don’t going to take classes in Spanish but want to learn the language by social activities with Spanish speaking people. The gymkhana was quite boring but meeting all these people was so great! That night we met at 9.30pm at Sol with the people I met and went with them to the MTV beach party despite of there is of course no beach in Madrid. We had a lot of fun, drinking beer for just 2,50 which is soooo cheap for Heineken beer in Madrid which is usually between 9-16 euros.
We didn’t went out with hem after because we didn’t had enough money anymore to pay the entrance and we were already tired.

Today there was a pick nick organised by ESN. By organising they just invited us all to the Retiro park. We did understand/ guess that ‘grab a beer or sangria’ meant that we had to took this ourselves to the park. We and a lot of other people didn’t understand if you wanted also something to eat you had to bring it yourselves as well. Although it was a really nice pick nick with the same people from yesterday evening. After we went to the city to buy some sport shoes so I can participate the sport day tomorrow.