Orientation in Madrid!

What a weekend! I don't know where to begin...

I would suppose from the beginning would be best though.

Friday, I "skipped" school because I still needed to pack for the weekend. Also, the train was leaving at 12, so in order to have time to return home from school, pick up my things, walk to the bus station, take the bus downtown, and then walk to the train station from the bus stop, I would have only been in school for one period, if that. So I stayed home and packed.

At the train station, I met Maddy and Cassie. I knew that I would be taking the train with them to Madrid, but I had no idea what they looked like, so I didn't know how I was going to find them. I shouldn't have been worried though. Maddy had her Rotary jacket on so I spotted them as soon as I get into the terminal. Cassie is living in Alcoy, about 30 minutes inland from Alicante, and Maddy is living in Altea, up the coast, but still close, to Alicante. The train ride was almost 4 hours long, but it wasn't bad. Cassie, Maddy, and I got to know each other pretty well. It was such a relief to be able to speak English! They also showed "The Spiderwick Chronicles" on the train, but it was in Spanish, so it was kinda hard to follow. But most of the ride was spent sharing our experiences so far in Spain.

When we got to Madrid and left the terminal, we met Gonzalo, a Rotex (for those of you who don't know, Rotex is the group for ex-exchange students) and another girl, who I can't remember where in Spain she is at. Our swiftly increasing band then went to the high speed train terminals to collect the students from Barcelona.

The group in the Madrid train station. (Cassie is the fifth in from the left and then it's Maddy and then me)

Once the Barcelona kids had been collected, we all went outside and then attempted to find the bus. Eventually, we found it. The next hour or so was spent traveling around Madrid, gathering other students. Finally, we went to a university about 30 minutes away from Madrid. It was still part of Madrid, but it wasn't Madrid proper. At the university, the rest of the students that lived nearby showed up. It was nice to meet the other students finally. Sadly, there is only one girl from Brazil, one from Sweden, and I think 4 from Canada. The rest are good ole Americans. Not that that is a problem, but I was hoping for something similar to this last year of Rotary weekends, where there were students from all over and a lot of diversity. But this isn't a problem. Two students have really interesting assignments. One girl is living in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, and one guy is living in Melilla, which, as he says, is Spanish North Africa. Friday night, there wasn't a lot going on. Early on, there was a barefoot soccer game, which was fun, except for the wet/mud patch and the patch of goatshead (which hurts like crazy when you run through it!!! And when you pull the burrs out of your feet, they get stuck in your fingers!!!). After that, a small group of us retired to someone's room to just hang out and talk. Josh has a friend from India and he had brought some real henna his friend had given him, so we did henna and talked the night away.

Saturday we got down to business. Tommaso and Eduardo went the rules, the 4 D's and everything else we could and couldn't do. One thing we learned that wasn't really a surprise, but I just hadn't really thought about it was how restricted our travel is. We have to have permission from our host family and the Rotary club, and if the trip means missing school, permission from the school principal and we're not allowed to travel alone. So that officially means going to visit Danielle in Madrid, or Josh in Malaga, or whoever else it pretty much out of the question. Luckily, Maddy and Cassie live close enough that I can visit easily on my own with a 3€ bus ticket. Then there were a few videos: one about Madrid and one made by Rotary concerning the 4 D's. Then we went through a checklist of things: have you met your Youth Exchange officer and do you have their contact info, do you have your proof of insurance (although for some, like me, we received our CIGNA cards at this point), etc. and so forth.

Most of us after all the official business was taken care of.

Saturday afternoon, we went on a "bus tour" of Madrid. Originally, we were going to simply drive around Madrid and have an actual bus tour: on your left you'll see this building and ahead on the right is that statue and whatnot. What we ended up doing was stopping at a couple select locations. We stopped at the Palacio Real and walked around a little of that area, and then we proceeded onto the Plaza Mayor, where we walked around more. Most of us went to the churro restaurant. Molly , Maddy, and I shared an order of churros con chocolate, which were good, but not what I was expecting. The churros themselves were just fried dough without the sugar I thought would be there, and the chocolate was more bitter than sweet. They were still good though!

Maddy and me in front of the Palacio Real (the Royal Palace).

La Plaza Mayor.

Random artistic shot getting back on the bus in Madrid.

After the bus tour, we returned to the university for a few more presentations and a paella lunch. It was interesting, to say the least. The paella had whole shrimp, cooked, but still in the shell, mussels, and who knows what else, and it was certainly interesting to try. Saturday night, there was a crazy party, but I was hanging out with a small group of people in one of the rooms, just talking about whatever came up. Then we went outside to the party, and later, another slightly different small group of us went to a different room and talked, but it wasn't just chit-chat, it was some really interesting, personal, and deep stuff. Sunday morning, was more or less the opposite of Friday afternoon, driving around Madrid dropping people off, finally ending with the same group from Friday returning to the station. Maddy, Cassie, and I only had to wait about an hour for our train, but the group from Barcelona had to wait almost 6 hours for theirs! Once we got back to Alicante (having slept most of the ride back, to make up for the sleep we lost over the weekend, as happens at any Rotary weekend), Cassie's host mom met us at the station to take her home. Maddy and I then walked to the bus station, had a snack, and saw her off, back to Altea. All by my lonesome, I walked down to the bus stop, and caught the bus back home.

It was a long weekend, but it was definitely worth every minute of sleep that was sacrificed.
Come again soon,
Erik

P.S. I have posted more pictures on Flickr. The link is under "My Photo Albums" on the left. Once you click the link and chose the set of pictures you want to see, choose "detail" to see all the pictures with their captions.

Currently listening to:
Song: Extreme Ways
Artist: Moby
Album: The Bourne Identity Soundtrack