So this one time I saw the president of Spain

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, current president of the government and presidential candidate in today's elections, came to speak at the UC3M on Tuesday. And it was incredible. I've never been to anything like that before. He spoke about a lot of really important topics like affordable education for all, women's right to work at the same jobs and earn the same pay as men, and working towards a society free from prejudice and xenophobia. He also promised not to send a single Spanish soldier to Iraq (good for him!). Even though I'm not a Spaniard by any stretch of the imagination, it made me proud and hopeful to hear Zapatero saying these things, whether they're just campaign promises or not. If I could vote today (who has elections on a Sunday?), I'd totally vote for him. What was also really cool was that I could understand EVERYTHING he said. It was such a great feeling.

Oh, and I forgot to mention in my last post that Pepita "outed" me Friday morning. I was eating breakfast in my usual semi-conscious morning state while she was preparing lunch. She was making a fish soup and telling me how fish is pretty typical for lent, and out of nowhere she asks me what religion I am. Once I stopped choking on my toast, I hesitantly told her I was Jewish, to which she responded, "And you eat everything?!" Clearly she's never seen the Proujansky family in action.

More recently, I spent this weekend traveling with the program to Salamanca and León, two cities northwest of Madrid. Salamanca was really pretty and old. The second oldest university in Spain is there (founded in the 1200s- it's a little older than Vassar), and it's all stone that must have taken forever to sculpt. León was cool too, we went to this modern art museum and visited a cathedral for a change, but it was beautiful and full of stained glass.

And now I'm back in my apartment, and I have two exams to study for this week. They're going to make me earn my spring break...