Cooking!

DONT WORRY THIS IS NOT ACTUALLY MY KITCHEN, UNFORTUNATELY IT IS SOMEONE ELSES :)

So I know this may come as a humongous shock to the majority of people reading this, so brace yoursevles, but I have been cooking lately! Not extraordinarily hard things, but seeing as the cooking gene definetly skipped my mother and I, this is a pretty big deal. I have successfully cooked a hamburger (a la plancha a.k.a frying it in oil), over easy eggs for breakfast and a weird pasta concoction that consisted of pasta, cured ham, tomato sauce and any spice that I could find in the cabinet! They all turned out fairly well, were eaten by other people and no one got sick or died so I am gonna chalk my success rate up to about 98% (just in case someone in the next 48 hours contracts Mad Cow disease or food poisoning!)
Luckily, Diego has been supervising me alot while I cook though I am not sure whether its to help me learn or because he thinks he may need to jump in at any moment to put out the grease fire that I am about to start...haha. Either way its nice having someone to help me in the kitchen, en cualquier sentido.
Ok so lets see what else is new in my life....well I had a pretty eventful weekend...On Friday since I didnt have work my friend Amanda and I went to Principe Pio to grab lunch at a cerveceria called La Tasca (Paseo de Florida) where we were more pleasantly surprised with out waiter and how cute he was then by the actual food. Later on we went to the Retiro park to drink some Shandys (beer con limon) and take in the sun. Later on in the night Amanda and I met up with my friend Fanny and some of her grilfriends to go out in Sol, we went to Bar Cibeles, drank a few copitas and straggled home at 5:30 in the morning. On Saturday I was lazy and spent most of the day in the house, watching fútbol and recuperating in preparation to go out on Saturday to celebrate with the girls who took the LSAT!
We started out the night at El Rinconcito, in true Madrid Fall 06 Style! I was a little bit wary of going back since Heather and I had spent so much time there together before, but I overcame my nostalgia and went in. (This part is mainly for Heather but the rest of you should enjoy it too): So I walk into Rinconcito only to walk past a guy that looks alot like our friend Alberto, who used to be the bartender there. I think nothing of it since Alberto had quit by the time we left Madrid, so I say perdon and push my way around to the bar. Upon arriving at the bar I ask for my mojito and also if the bartender knew Alberto and Miguel who used to work there. Bartender laughs and says 'oye mujer, pero ya esta aki' and i'm like '¿quien?' and mr. bartender proceeds to point out said Alberto look alike at which point I realize that it is in fact the one and only, Alberto. I swear I could've died. I dont know what was funnier the look on my face or his when we relized it. Anyway not to drag things out, we talked, exchanged numbers (he still had my old number in his phone) and asked for Heather's e-mail because apparently he'd been wondering what she'd been up to. LOLZ love it. The night ended again at Bar Cibeles where I met some great people and then spent all day yesterday in bed/watching TV/being useless, so I could rest up for work today!
This afternoon I am going up to Bambú to meet with the families I am going to be teaching English to, and then hopefully will be back early enough to eat dinner andgo to bed at a decent hour!
Ok I think thats enough for now, more later. xoxoxo
LuLu

Where the Hell is Matt? 2008

...is a fantastic video that everyone should see! go on www.youtube.com and search for it!

love you all!

-LuLu

Jeez I am bad at this...

Hola todos! Well in pure procrastination style I am writing this way too late.

Lets see, what first? Well I found an apartment! I am living in Oporto in the south of Madrid. I can get to work in about 40 minutes and its close to the center of the city too. I have two roommates, Diego and Cesar. Diego is in his early thirties and is from Buenos Aires. He's been here three years and has a one and a half year old son, Bruno, who is the cutest thing in the entire world! Obviously Bruno doesnt live here with us but he comes over after school to play! Cesar is 24 and from a town in Cantabria in the north of Madrid. He works as a security guard right now but is training to be a police man, he's excited because he gets to carry a gun starting next week. Needless to say it makes me feel a little safer :) haha.

I went to my school today to meet all the professors that I will be working with. I start tomorrow at 10am. I work Mon-Thursday 10-4 with a break from 12:30-2:30. I work in a town called Mostoles, its a fairly large city to the southwest of Madrid and is full of families. There are over 19 bilingual and regular elementary schools in the town alone! Its crazy! I am working with another American, Kyle who is from Lincoln Nebraska. He is super nice and seems to be just as excited as I am to begin work! I will be helping the teachers for Infantil (which is 4 and 5 year olds) and also the 2,3, and 4 year students! Some of the students are slated to take the Trinity English Examination in December so I will be working in groups of 3 students also to help them prepare.

I will also be giving private lessons to four families in the north of Madrid to make some extra moolah!

A the beginning of last week I went to Barcelona for La Merce (patron saint festival) to visit my friends and enjoy the Barcelona night life a little :) I stayed with my friend Raul and was able to see alot of my friends and my host mother. It was fantastic being back in the city and I really enjoyed my mini-vacation!

That's pretty much all for now! Miss all of you tons!

Lu

18 hours later

Well everyone, just wanted to send out a quick note saying that I made it to Madrid in one piece! The flights were long, but uneventful and I got to Toti's house without problems!
On a more exciting note, I found internet on Toti's patio without having to hang my laptop over the edge, so hopefully I will be in contact more frequently (though I am pretty sure that it will disappear over the weekend).

I will write in more detail later, but now I am going to lie down! I hope you are all well and send me e-mails so I can stay updated on everyone! Love to all!

-Laura (can you tell I am acting Spanish already?)

<3

Period of Lucid Dreams

"Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives." -William Dement (b. 1928 one of the leading researchers in the field of sleep studies and former jazz musician)

So I have noticed lately that I have been dreaming alot more. Not in the sense that I sit and think for hours, lost in my own thought (that I try to avoid) but that while I am asleep I have ridiculously real and vivid dreams. Some will say that its because I have alot on my plate, others would say that its because I don't have enough, either way all I know is that something profound is going on in my brain and its a little scary.

Ever since I can remember, I would wake up in the morning with a vague recollection of what I had dreamt the night before, on a rare occasion I would even have a dream that would repeat for a week or so and then disappear in my head as quickly as it had appeared. Now though, I have trouble discerning whether I am in my dream or not, its almost too real to the point where I find myself struggling to wake the other parts of my brain up so I can escape from my nightly adventures. For awhile I thought maybe it was just me, maybe I am manifesting my fears, hopes, thoughts, & other mental/emotional musings unlike other people, but today as Brittany and I drove to CVS she brought up the topic of how her dreams have been surprisingly real lately as well.

So maybe its not just me? Maybe all 22 year old women go through a period where their dreams become almost too real to handle. Given Brittany and I both have been through our fair share of emotional ups & downs this summer but still...how it could it be that out of the blue both our brains have become so freakishly active? I guess that something I should probably ask the author of my opening quote, but until then all I can do is wonder...and of course, dream.

"He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it." -Douglas Adams "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy"

Things that inspire me

Here is a collection of a few quotes that have brought a certain amount of enlightenment to my life, may they do the same for you!


"About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won't like you at all."

-Rita Mae Brown


"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."

-Albert Einstein


"¿Qué es la vida? Un frenesí.
¿Qué es la vida? Una ilusión,
una sombra, una ficción;
y el mayor bien es pequeño;
que toda la vida es sueño,
y los sueños, sueños son."

-Calderon de la Barca, "La Vida es Sueño"


"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give."

-Sir Winston Churchill


"I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman."

-Anaïs Nin

And the one that will always guide me:

"Everything happens for a reason"