este es el primer blog que estoy escribiendo desde Madriz. I say Madriz cause thats how they pronounce it here, except they pronounce the "c" and the "z" like a "th" so it sounds like everyone has a lisp. actually thats how it started, an old king of spain had a lisp and passed it down to his sons, so people started talking with a lisp to sound like the king. fickle spaniards, ha. kidding, completely kidding. so far, everything is good, food is amazing, people are beautiful, classes arent bad, people in the program are pretty good too. actually i shouldnt say the people are beautiful, the women are beautiful. the dudes are chumps, and they all have girlfriends that look like models, its like south beach except these dudes dont have money. . .just tight pants, really tight pants. the lifestyle here is soo laid back, its hard to get used to, people just dont like to work much from what i´ve noticed. of course you know about the siesta, where shops close for 3 hour lunch breaks, but even after that, everybody goes out to bars, even when theyre 80 years old. my senora, matilde, and her aunt, tita (who is about 80 and cant hear a thing or pronounce my name to save her life, its cute) go out drinking even now, so its interesting. the other students in the program are pretty fun too, not half as fun as everyone back home of course, but definitely fun to hang out with, haha. its kinda bad though, cause i´m around so many american students all the time, and we dont always speak spanish to each other, so my speaking skills are definitely not gonna improve as much as i´d hoped. listening definitely, but speaking unfortunately is not gonna get much better. the thing thats been most interesting to me is that, even after less than a week, i dont think i could ever live here permanently. while the laid back lifestyle is a really refreshing change from the workaholic mentality thats so prevalent at home, that workaholicism is actually fairly deeply ingrained in me. i realized that with all this time to relax and just enjoy life, i find myself looking for things to fill my day with, which is partially why i joined a gym, and partially why i was glad one of my classes has so much reading. what ive also realized is that 6 weeks is absolutely not enough time to experience as much as one would hope here. they have 3 trips planned for us, so thats only 2 weekends to travel to other places really, and even though madrid is a small city, there's a million things to see, hear, do, eat, drink, and experience here, and i can definitely keep myself busy trying to take it all in. . . .