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.