Oktoberfest

I headed out to Munich for the weekend to meet up with Andrew Cohen for the opening weekend of Oktoberfest. I headed to the airport Friday early in the morning only to realize that the metro/bus lines in Madrid were on strike again. I decided not to try to risk missing my flight and hopped in a cab. I got to the airport with a couple hours to spare so I took a nap and set an alarm. My flight was bumped an hour earlier and i woke up panicking and running to my gate just to make my flight. I took the train to the subway stop recommended by the hotel website. Despite that my hotel was right next to the stop, I still got lost and wandered around for a couple hours before finally arriving. Andrew and I checked in got dinner, some drinks and called it a night to get up early for the festivities the next day. We got to the park around 8am and waited in line at a tent that served Paulaner. The tents were extremely elaborate and were actually more buildings than tents. Luckily we grabbed a table through the mad rush of people in our particular beer tent. We welcomed some Italian friends we made in line to sit with us. Then proceeded to welcome a Scottish couple, an Australian couple and a small group of Italian girls to join us as well. With our table full, we conversed and ate a little, until right before noon, the Mayor of Bavaria gave a little speech in German and then said "O' zapft is!", which means it's tapped. The waitresses came out with liters and everybody went nuts. The day as a whole was a very awesome experience and I would definitely like to come back at some point better prepared with my own pair of lederhosen. When we left the park at the end of the day, Andrew found some liter mugs that we snagged as our souvenirs for the festival.  Today we walked around the park again a little later until Andrew's train got in. I got an slow-roasted oxen sandwich and an Oktoberfest shirt. The hotel we stayed at was right next to the BMW museum and the Olympic grounds from the '72 games that are surprisingly well maintained. These two places were great for passing some time until my flight. The hotel was also very close to Dachau, but I wasn't particularly in the mood to have a depressing day. Overall a very 'memorable' weekend and will hopefully have some pictures up soon!

9/20 Update

So much has gone on I can't even begin to touch the surface of how much fun our whole group is having here. Not one day has ended without something eventful taking place. I'll start with the basics... Class has taken up a lot of the daytime during the week as most of my classes are spread out throughout the day until around 5-7ish. Since my house is an hour away I can't really go back and nap, which kind of sucks. I am not exactly sure what is going on in one of my classes and am surprisingly relaxed about this seemingly shitty situation. I have been attempting to workout and even played squash with Bohao today (he was a table tennis pro in China or something). At night we always go out and do something so still sleep has not been in the picture here. Toledo was a nice day trip last weekend, but in my opinion, was very similar to Santiago with a couple of synagogues as well. This Tuesday a group of us went over to Santiago-Bernabeu for the Real Madrid vs. Manchester City game. This was by far the craziest, most exciting sporting event I have ever been too. We scored 2 goals in the last few minutes to take the game from the reigning English Premier League Champions. On Sunday a couple of us went to the most famous synagogue in Madrid for Rosh Hashana. We got questioned individually and fairly intensely by some Mosad guys, which was very comparable to customs coming back from Israel. There were a crazy amount of cops outside the temple for security. Nevertheless, we paid, got in and saw the Ashkenazi service that went by surprisingly quickly. Tomorrow morning I am flying out of Madrid to meet up with Andrew Cohen in Munich. The opening ceremonies for Oktoberfest are this Saturday and hopefully we can make our way into one of the beer tents bright and early.  I have trips planned for Sensation White in Copenhagen and Amsterdam so far. We are going to book Barcelona tickets soon and Andrew and I are thinking about going over to Italy in late December. I'll give another post ideally on Monday regarding Munich and the festivities.
Joey

Hey all, sorry it's taken so long since my last post. I try to do one every week but last week was the first week of classes, so yeah.

We've basically been studying a lot and meeting some of the late arrivals in our program-some really cool people. But the coolest discovery I've had has been away from the Americans and my new friends: traveling alone in a foreign country, let alone one where I stick out so much would be difficult. But all it took was one instance of struggling to ask for correct change in a convenience store. I was really struggling with a particular grammar construct and kept asking for change from the cashier incorrectly. I distinctly heard multiple people giggle and say "foreigner". I wasn't that offended, really I found it funny, but I think I am starting to grasp what it is to be an outsider. That experience coupled with the stares I get from small Taiwanese children as they call me "white person" has been strange.

It isn't these experiences that are making my stay in Taiwan so memorable, I've had this happen when I would go compete in Curacao or Ecuador for Karate. It's that plus the absolute warmth that everyone in this country has welcomed me with, including those kids (who love to wave hello) and that cashier. Plus I get some amazing photos of some breathtaking scenery from some long hikes, or if I'm just lazy I can just look out my window. I'll upload a few as soon as I can

End of Week 1

I am settled in my home for the semester and classes start tomorrow in Getafe. It's about a 1 hour commute to school and I am enrolled in 5 courses. I am beginning to become more familiar with the city as we wander around each day. On Thursday night two guys and I played a drinking game with three local spanish girls, which was definitely a fun change of pace. We went out with out our 'monitores' on Friday night and due to the very large amount of girls in our program they negotiated some pretty awesome deals at the bars and discotecas we went to during the night. Yesterday I went to the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum, but didn't get a chance to checkout the Edward Hopper exhibit. According to my family, it is one of the top three museums in Madrid and I got to see a ton of famous pieces by painters such as, Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse,  Monet, Manet, etc. As I have said many of my previous blogs, the night life here is insane and every night there is something complete new and unique to do throughout the city. Last night a group of us hung out in the park drinking, which is a very typical thing for young people in Madrid to do. It is called a "botellon" and, with its growing popularity, it has recently become illegal. It's definitely a good way to save money, as going out at night in Madrid can get pretty pricey. I also watched the FIBA world cup 3x3 basketball tournament down the street from me over the past two days. It was a two day tournament and Split, Croatia played Ljubljana, Slovenia in the finals, thus qualifying them to play in Miami in some sort of finals. This morning a group of us got up early to head over to Santiago Bernabeu, where Real Madrid plays, and bought tickets in the nosebleeds for next Tuesday's game versus Manchester City (the top team in the premiere league) at 8:45pm. On a side note, euros are complete crap for the sole purpose that the one and two euro bills are not in paper form, but coins. Therefore, you get stuck with a ridiculous amount of coins at the end of the day, though is subtly genius as it encourages people to stimulate the economy due to their great annoyance and inconvenience (obviously not working here). There are many signs of Spains failing economy that we have been keeping track of. For example, on my way to class the other day I saw a government employee raking the sand in a very small childrens' playground next to my house. Also, apparently, the Mexican spanish I have learned throughout my life is far more different than Spain spanish to the point where the madrileños sometimes can't even understand what I am saying and have even gone as far as to point out the different dialect. Despite this slight inconvenience, I feel as if my spanish is improving a little bit and certainly notice my main issue being a lack in vocabulary and a small issue with correctly conjugating verb tenses. I think that's all for now and will likely post again after our day excursion to Toledo next weekend at the very latest.

Madrid So Far...

So it's my second day in Madrid, and though we are all still getting accustomed to the city and university, it has been a very fun and unique experience so far. Yesterday we picked out some classes for most of the day and everyone was pretty tired for the most part. We went to this sandwich place and for a couple euro you could get the biggest sandwich ever. I ate half yesterday and the other half for lunch today. This morning I got a little lost and was late for my language written exam for spanish class placement. I blew through it and still finished before half of the class. While speaking with our program director regarding reimbursements for activities throughout the city, she brought up multiple times that orgies would not be reimbursed and we were all dying of laughter. After that we took the train back into the city and a couple of guys and I bummed around, what we found out to be, the gay community. This made sense because we went to the area where the guide book told us we could buy shoes for one of our friends. We stopped at one point and had a calamari sandwich that was insanely good and a Spaniard at the restaurant told me I speak Mexican spanish. After hours of walking around joking around in the city, we parted ways. On the way home a man came onto the metro with an amp and an acoustic guitar and started jamming on the train, which definitely helped pass the time on the ride home. While walking back I ran into a little boy running around with his parents wearing no pants. At this point I realized how many little, 'cultural' experiences I have had in Spain and how little I am going to remember. Even in this blog post I am certain to have forgotten many little details about the culture and things I have seen so far. Nevertheless, I will continue to post what is going on to the best of my ability. Classes start next Monday so I hope this week should be pretty relaxing overall. Going to go eat dinner with my host family so yeah.
Joey

Leaving For Madrid

So we're taking off today and leaving for the airport in a couple of hours. It's crazy how time flies by, but I think we're all ready to get started on the semester in Madrid. Last night we had a goodbye dinner at what seemed to me like a very fancy restaurant. A small group of us hung out afterwards at a bar outside and the last night was instantly ruined by a Canadian girl in our group who thought the nights topic of conversation should be on the lines of things such as rape. Once she got on a roll there was no one stopping her (clearly she doesn't go out a lot). After about an hour of this one-sided lecture of her views on some pretty terrible topics of conversation, I had enough and proposed to leave. On a brighter note, I found out my host family who are two 43 years olds, Pedro and Christina. Pedro has two kids, a boy and a girl, 16 and 12 respectively, who visit on the weekends. I live on Avda. de Bonn, 21 - 7 D and live pretty far away from the other students on the trip, as well as, a 50 minute commute to the university. I am excited to get settled in and explore the city for the next couple months. I am definitely looking forward to get out to Munich for Oktoberfest in a couple weeks, and will try to get another post in once I get everything situated in Madrid.
Joey

Santiago coming to a close

I just proceeded to tell my professor off about the inquisition in my final paper (hopefully I don't fail as a result). The past few days have been more relaxed as we have gotten settled into Santiago. Sadly we will be taking off for Madrid on Monday, which will certainly be a very hectic few days/weeks. The other day we played basketball again and a really stereotypical french guy joined us. The past few nights have been pretty fun and chill for the most part. Now that we're done with classes everybody will definitely be up until sunrise tonight. We took a tour on the roof of the Cathedral and the view was indescribable. Obviously I forgot my camera so that was a little disappointing. I have been keeping down the food here a little better as I become more accustom to the food, meal timing/sizes, sleep schedule, etc. (minus the crappy pad thai I had the other night) Fun fact: even with the outlet converters the voltage here is way higher than America so my metal macbook never fails to shock me when its plugged in.
Joey