To get to my internship, I take a metro train to the Moncloa station and then transfer to a bus. To get home, I do the same trip in reverse. It has taken exactly 35 minutes both times I've made the trip, which seems to be the beauty of living in a city with a great public transit system. The fare is one euro per ride, but Madrid doesn't have the concept of a transfer -- you know, unlimited rides for a certain length of time after paying your fare, like Minneapolis and a bunch of other cities have. In Madrid you pay every time you board. So when I went for a 20-minute introductory interview on Tuesday at the company where I'll be interning, it cost 4€: 1€ for the train, 1€ for the bus, 1€ for the bus, and 1€ for the train. I think I'll buy a monthly pass!

In all honesty, I had gone to the business on Monday as well, just to scope it out and because I was somewhat paranoid about not being able to find it and being late for my Tuesday interview. The trip took, of course, 35 minutes, and I found it easily. But, I thought, what if it takes longer next time? I can't count on 35 minutes! I need to leave myself plenty of time tomorrow! You can see where this is going. I left on Tuesday nearly an hour and a half early, the trip took exactly 35 minutes, and I was there 50 minutes before my interview was scheduled to start. Great, no problem, I can wait in a coffeeshop, right? Except the office buildingl is surrounded by hotels and other offices, not coffeeshops. I finally took refuge (it was raining, by the way) in a pharmacy, where the very kind lady at the counter let me wait in the store for over half an hour looking at baby bottles and super-strength toothpaste while I re-read my résumé and tried not to seem like a homeless guy.

But the interview went well and I'm really excited to start. I'm the third American intern they've had, so it seems this is fairly routine for them by now. Señor Pallares, the gentleman who arranges internships in Madrid with Adelante, had encouraged me and Charlie (my roommate, who also had an interview with his company the previous day) to "poneros guapos, chicos" -- dress up fancy -- and so I added a tie and a nice sweater to the 'business casual' stuff I'd brought and it seemed to fit well.

The cliché that Spanish television is mostly comprised of overdubbed American shows is very, very true. Movies are especially popular. So far, we've seen Ice Princess (oh boy -- gotta love the Zamboni driver), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the Johnny Depp version), and some movie that, by my guesses: (1) was made in the 70s, (2) isn't very well-known in the U.S. but is American, and (3) involves two cousins who are very meek and hire two identical kickass doubles to live out certain dangerous situations for them

Anybody have a clue as to what this is? It was terrible, but oh so funny, and I might want to watch it in English sometime... (Maybe it was only funny in Spanish -- there was something about "¡Buen golpe, primo!" [way to sock 'em, cousin!] that just set me laughing...) Also, the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory overdub was SO well done, even down to writing rhyming Spanish versions of the Oompa-Loompa songs. It was as if the film had been shot in Spanish.

Many native Madrileños know some English, but most aren't fluent. I'll always try my Spanish first, and sometimes whoever I'm talking to will reconfirm in English if my Spanish try is particularly bad. In the really touristy areas, many people know English well, so they'll hear me say a couple words and switch immediately to English. This can be a nice bail-out, but more often than not it's annoying since I want to practice Spanish. I'm getting better at being able to keep a conversation going in Spanish, but there are still a few places where English is appropriate. Charlie and I went to an Irish pub (yes, they're popular in Spain too, and they play American sports on TV, which is why we were there) a little while ago and after our initial Spanish greeting, the bartender asked, "You're Americans, right?" in English. We said we were, and he said, "Well, I'm Irish, blokes, so what say we talk in English, eh?"

Also, there are turtles in the train station. Many many. Real turtles. Live. On Thursday, Charlie and I took a walk through Retiro park (which is huge and gorgeous; Madrid's Central Park) and ended up down at Atocha, the larger of Madrid's two rail stations. The massive old train shed isn't used for trains anymore -- they built a new double-level train shed for that. Instead, it's a huge indoor garden/greenhouse/waiting area for passengers. It's lovely, and turtles live in and amongst the gardens, and I guess you can look at and play with them. Also, my Spanish professor told me that the garden has become a bit of a drop point for unwanted turtles -- like when a kid gets a turtle for Christmas and doesn't want it, the parents take it to Atocha.

In my language school, there are flyers for "Language Interchange Nights" or "Intercambios" (not sponsored by the language school, just ads) but really, they look so sketchy. They're like the bar/club flyers that I find under the windshield wiper sometimes when I'm parked at the U. One of them is especially bad -- its disco ball logo sits atop the words "Invitamos a Españoles y extranjeros para que intercambien sus idiomas (o lo que sea)" which roughly translates to "We invite Spaniards and foreigners so they can interchange their languages (or whatever else...)." Chicos 5€, chicas gratis. Think I'll be avoiding that one, not my style...

Oy, that's about it for now.  Today, I walked down with a few others to El Rastro, Madrid's huge Sunday flea market, and that was fun but rather repetitive -- anybody want leather belts, leather purses, beautiful scarves, newsboy caps, or drawstring cloth pants? I know, oh, about 50 different tents to buy them from at the Rastro...

More later,

Andy