Death From Above 30 Stories

(the blur)

Last week went by in a blur. I had a few extra hours of class last week with my mini curso on urban space in Madrid- my favorite class thus far. We traced the city’s beginning on maps and plans and then saw it firsthand on two long walking fieldtrips through the city. We covered everything from city planning principles to architectural standards. Even the exam for the class was interesting. It was a bit like the id part of the 170 exam, but all from an aerial photo of Madrid. Studying for the exam meant climbing to the top of el Torre de Europa in the financial district of town and look down on the city from the roof (30 stories up with no guardrailaround the edge).

(missing something? how about a guaard rail)

(view of la Puerta de Europe towers)

(Madird's garden cities)

(view from 9 stories up in the older part of town)

And now that I’ve reminded myself why I’m an architecture major…

I cant believe its already Tuesday and that I’ve been in Spain for over a week since Greece. Steph and I had kepabs the other day and the whole time we were devouring the messy dinner we were commenting on how much better gyros are. But while the tastes of Greece are fading away, my tan isn’t. It’s been really warm and sunny in Madrid (other than the apocalyptic downpours and hail storm on Saturday).

But as much as I miss my little love affair with the Greek Islands, I’ve had a fun time in Madrid this weekend. On Thursday night Stephanie, Matt, Frankie and I made a pact to make Spanish friends before the end of the night. After a failed attempt at a cute café with a wall covered in board games, we moved onto Supersonic (an indie club). On a break from dancing at the bar I decided to try my hand at making friends and started talking to a couple Spanish kids. Matt and Frankie soon joined in the conversation, which was about everything from photography to British accents. One of the kids is named Beltran and (like the other Beltran) studied in England for a couple years and could speak English quite well. We all exchanged numbers as the club was closing with a promise to meet up the next day for lunch/drinks/more hanging out at Supersonic.

Fast-forward to the next night- no phone call, no text message. Matt and I have nothing better to do so we decided to hit up Supersonic again with Emelia. We’re enjoying our drinks on a couch when we see Beltran who explains to us the reason he never called. Apparently he felt to embarrassed by his drunkenness the night before and didn’t want us, “the cool new people” to think he was an idiot. But everyone knows how that goes… The rest of the night was spent talking or dancing whenever I heard a song I deemed was dance-worthy. And every now and then, in mid spin I'd turn around thinking I'd see Shaddy or Pedro behind me like in SF. And it would hit me that I was still in Spain and there's no way it could be them.

I suppose I should get back to studying for my exam tomorrow in my colloquial class. I need to review the different uses of “cojones.”