Whoa whoa whoa!

Not only are the words different in Spanish, but most of the noises are too. Take the title of this blog for instance. When you make that noise in English, it generally means "stop!" or "damn!" or something along those lines. So when I came into the apartment last night and Luis made that noise, I assumed I had almost hit him with the door and apologized. But whoa means something very different in Spanish. When I said "lo siento" he said "no no, como un perro!" (like a dog!). So now I know that "whoa" is the sound a dog makes, and also that my Spanish family is crazy in an endearing sort of way. It makes me feel right at home.

Que más... oh, Toledo! Toledo was jam packed with tours of churches, mosques, and a synagogue! It was surprisingly emotional being in the synagogue after seeing so many churches. The synagogue itself was small but pretty, and no flash photography was allowed inside, so what few pictures I did take are nothing stellar. Toledo also has a lot of silversmiths and other people who work with metals (I feel like there's a word for this, but I'm at the point now where both my English and Spanish are horrible). Not only do they have lots of pretty jewelry that I didn't have time to shop for, but they also sell lots of swords. Our tour guide told us that the swords in the Lord of the Rings trilogy were actually made in Toledo. Pretty cool (or, in spanish, superguay!).

After we got back to Madrid on Saturday, I went out with my friends and we ended our night with churros con chocolate at a 24-hour chocolateria. It was mind blowing. There's nothing better than fried dough dipped in a cup of melted chocolate at 4 in the morning.

Classes started today, and I really like the two classes I had, español coloquial and my language class. The profesoras are so nice, and after just one day I feel like I've learned a lot. Mónica, the profesora for my language class, told us that the first 5 minutes of every class will be reserved for questions we have that are non-grammar related, like "My señora organizes and goes through my things when I'm not home. How do I ask her politely to stop?" which is pretty cool.

Also, I was talking with Pepa, one of the amazing monitores, today between classes, and I'm going to help her cousin Maria with her English conversation skills. And get paid 12.50 euros (about $18.50) per hour, which is awesome because Madrid is not a cheap city. ¡Fantástico!

And finally, if you all are still reading this, feel free to write back to me by clicking on the comments button at the bottom of each post or just sending me an email. I want to know how everybody back home/scattered across the globe is doing too!