14 Weeks Down, 27 to Go!

We meet again, and again I feel compelled to apologize for my tardy posting. I really have no excuse; spent the past 4 days relishing in some alone time. Both my roommates went away for Christmas and I stayed in the apartment by myself. Let me stop you right there. Stop feeling sorry for me or giving the computer a crumpled face of pity. I liked it that way. If I had wanted to I could have found somewhere to go and be with people on Christmas, but I didn't want to just tag along to someone else's celebrations. I preferred to be alone and not thrust into an awkward situation. I preferred to be near the my computer so I could contact my family and not sitting around wishing I could leave some other family's party.

For Christmas eve I rode the bus around Madrid and looked at the lights. Then on Christmas I opened my box of gifts from home and made a "fancy" dinner. Fancy is in quotes because I really didn't do much, but since typical dinners around here are salads or eggs or cereal the steak I made is considered fancy. I also called home a half dozen times and tried to transport myself to Oregon Christmas by listening to the live stream of KINK 101.9 on the internet. They always play tons of Christmas music, but not just standards; they play all kinds of Christmas-y music by the same artists the radio plays. I liked it very much.

Then I just spent the next couple of days lounging about and reading and taking occasional
walks around my neighborhood. What I was preparing for was the invasion of Americans.

Let me total it up for you...
Meagan has 3 friends from home coming to visit (clearly, they are staying in her apartment, not mine).
Melanie has 1 friend from home.
Audrey has 3 friends from home.
Last, Alicia came into Madrid the morning of the 27th. She is staying at Meagan and Theresa's.

Between the two places there are EIGHT friends here. My apartment is hardly big enough to hold the three who live here on a regular basis, so doubling that number could be considered a sign of mental instability on my roommate's parts. Obviously, this is the time for many people to travel given the holidays and time off from various commitments but still...

I'm really excited to see Alicia, since she is awesome. Today we met up and walked around Madrid for a few hours, just looking at things and talking. Our wandering lead us into a bar for some Sangria and then a restaurant near my apartment for some dinner. It was a truly enjoyable evening. She also mentioned an overnight trip to Sevilla, so that will probably be a blast. Good thing I took advantage of my chance to rest up and am now prepared for entertaining and putting up with the population growth of my apartment.