¡Qué perezoso!

Ok, so maybe it's been two weeks and I haven't updated. Very sorry for that folks but I'll try harder to keep this updated more.

You see, I've just been doin' stuff. And things. And when I get home at the end of the day of doing stuff I'm usually not in the mood to type so more. I do force myself to write every night in my journal, even if I don't at all feel like it (you should see how illegible the more drunken entries are) -- but getting on the computer and typing is a different story, I suppose. And I apologize, though I've kept in contact with you guys anyways, so you know I haven't died at all. That much is for sure.

What have I been doing? Hmm...

Last I left off was the day before election day. Holy crap a lot has happened since then.

Election night here was interesting. We are six hours ahead of the east coast, so about the time polls were closing in the States, most people were already in bed and asleep. But not me. I pleaded and begged my friend Monica to implore her parents to keep the internet on all night (I steal it from her house since it's so close by). They relented and I stayed up watching a live feed of MSNBC and having about four other tabs open on my computer with maps and percentages and all that good stuff about the election. It was 4a.m. and it looked like Obama was going to win but there was no way I was going to go to bed until it was official. Around 10p.m. central time, the election was going to be called, I could tell, as soon as the West Coast polls closed. At about 9:50p.m. central time, the internet cut off. I frantically called Monica and my mom and Angie back home to tell them there are problems and they might need to relay the results to me in a few minutes. Monica scrambled, thankfully, and got the internet turned back on at 10p.m. CST, the live feed to MSNBC came back in the moment they got back from commercial and announced Barack Obama as the next president of the United States.

Now keep in mind it was 5a.m. in Spain. The streets were quiet and dark. I was in my room with the lights off, on the phone with my mom. I had been up for nearly 24 hours. I was shaking. I couldn't fall asleep. I called Armani to let her know, her mom had already called her. We were both freaking out, too excited and too emotional to do anything but just run around in awe. I was pacing throughout my room trying not to wake up my host parents. I quickly scribbled in my journal a few words of disbelief then tried to fall asleep.

Received a text from our teacher a few hours later saying she was sick and class was cancelled. I like to believe she was just giving us the day off because she knew we were up awaiting the results. I slept soundly until my second class, then headed in.

That night was a time for celebration. Maya, Monica, and myself headed to our favorite café/bar, Macandé and got a bottle of cava (Spanish champagne). Maya and myself downed it and stumbled to meet up with the rest of our friends. I was in an American mood so I demanded a hamburger, but the best place to get burgers in town (a bar called la Amstelería -- literally "the Amstel shop") was full because there was a football game on. Regrettably we went to Tony Roma's. Regrettable only because I hate being that American that goes to the only American restaurant in town, a chain no less. Whatever, I was excited, Obama will be our new President, time to celebrate. I got a burger and wine. Later we headed to a new fun café/bar we found called Café Renacimiento (Renacimiento=Renaissance). The building appears to be an old church or temple, and it's about three stories tall with plenty of seating everywhere. We've been there on weekend nights and it fills up quickly at night.

Post-election? My mind was still racing from my pre-election fury. Ask anyone here and I was not a fun person to be around before the election because I was constantly freaking out, worried, and anxious about the outcome. Now, of course, I've calmed down.

We had the usual botellón on Thursday. We ended up at the karaoke bar singing, appropriately, "We Are the Champions." The spirit of victory constantly remained with us the triumphant ones (unfortunately one of our amigas here is a--dare I say it--McCain supporter. Or rather, was.), Friday was filled with more celebrations, wine and tapas and raciones in the afternoon, café after café of celebratory rounds. It was and still is a great time to be an American. Very different though being abroad, it gives you a new perspective I suppose. Everyone here was extremely excited for Obama and us Americans. For once we weren't hated!

La Luna would have been on Friday if I had not had a bad run in with Lambrusco on our way there (it's something to say when you can walk past a cop with a bottle of wine in our hand...), having stuffed myself again at dinner, taking swigs of carbonated beverages was not a good idea. I went home early.

Unfortunately ended up staying in altogether on Saturday because I was beat from the rest of the week, the week of craziness, so many emotions packed into so few days and hours at times is very dangerous.

Then Sunday, the day everyone universally dreads. The day of waking up tired, not wanting to shower or change, having a mountain of homework to do, and generally being grumpy. You can't ever get to sleep, causing Mondays to suck too, you don't feel like going out because you have all this homework but you really want to get some fresh air, to escape the monotony of the house. Yeah, Sundays pretty much suck. So that's why we headed to Madrid to watch a movie--in English! "Burn After Reading" if you haven't seen it (came out in September in the States) is the new Coen brothers movie, a comedy about espionage and misunderstanding, really. It's quite good and I recommend seeing it if it's still in theatres by you.

That was two weeks ago, the fated election week. It's lunch time now but after I do that I'll let you all know what happened this past week. And what a week it was.

Oh, and I'll stop being lame too, what with the whole not-updating-in-forever thing. Oh and if I ever get stable and quick internet at the home location I'll upload some cool photos I've taken recently here in Alcalá.