So I figure I better get in the habit of trying to daily updates, because once I forget a day I assume it will all be downhill from there....anywho as I said in my last entry, today I moved into my new apartment!  All my roommates are extremely friendly and social, and its been really interesting getting to know them considering all their diverse backgrounds.  Today was a pretty low key day though because a lot of the students were either busy preparing for exams or had just moved in recently.  I'm super excited to start hanging out with them more though :) 

Today was basically like the first day moving into school for me - I spent most of my organizing all my stuff in my room, shopping for grocieries, and getting everything else situated.  I also spent 22818 years looking for hangers since only 3 were supplied in my closet and I figured that wouldn't be very sufficient....lol. 

Tonight I ended up going going out for dinner at Gino's (an amazing Italian restaurant) and then went to watch Sex and the City - in Spanish! - with Alberto and some of his friends.  Being out at night on the weekend gave me a lot of memories of things I had forgotten about Spain since being their last year, like the fact that night life NEVER ends and people are always wandering at any hour.  One thing I do love, is that unlike my situation in Malaga, this time I live smack dab in the city center and I never have to feel unsafe walking home :) There's a few different things that I also am enjoying about this specific experience in Madrid as opposed to my time in Malaga....first off, I absolutely LOVED my time over there and wouldn't change anything about it, but this time around does have some advantages. one of them being that fact that I have a tonnnn more independence than before.  I don't have a host family bombarding me to tell me to call them whenever I'm going somewhere, and I don't have to worry about not being back in time for a meal (they take family meal time quite seriously), and this also means that I don't have a host mom trying to feed me 83,000 pounds of food everyday because she hates to see me not gain weight and actually feel healthy apparently.  This program is also a lot more laid back and not as controlled by the directors which has been awesome.  Yes that does mean its easier to have some bumps along the road because there's not as much help to bail you out, but you've still got your roommates and a few emergency phone numbers for bad situations.  At the same time though, the city is a lot more accessible and there is a lot more you can do without all the time frame restrictions and ridiculous rules given out by a control freak program (AKA Malaga's ISA company).  This also allows for more time to go out of your comfort zone and forces you to take care of yourself in everyway possible because you are responsible for yourself in every situation.

For some reason this time around I've also found myself feeling a lot more relaxed and at ease with everything associated with my time abroad.  In Málaga I remember dealing with a ton of culture shock and everything seemed to strange and difficult to adapt to.  This time, other than the jet leg, I snapped into the swing of things surprisingly quickly and didn't really feel any pressure or hard times with adapting.  I also feel like I'm not as paranoid about the outcome of the experience as well, which is extremely relieving.  In my semester in Malaga, I remember constantly being worried about if I was going out enough, who I was hanging out with, how I was dealing with the culture, and just basically being overly concerned about little things that really wouldn't make that much of a difference anyways.  Its a great feeling to have gotten rid of that pressure, and I'm having more of a "go with the flow" approach this time that is working out much better  I figure overcontemplating and constantly worrying about every little detail won't help to make it a more positive experience, so I might as well just go along with it, go with my gut, and just enjoy it :)

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I got pretty tired pretty early tonight because I haven't really gotten a good nights sleep yet unfortunately, so I decided to not have a traditional late Spanish night.  But its 2:30 right now and I can still hear several people wandering around outside....I kind of like having some liveliness close to me though :)

Well thats about all I can think of for right now....I am muy muy tired!  My apologies if this blog doesn't make any sense, I have done no proofreading and am basically just "sleep wriitng" at this point. lol.

**Also i realize the current amount of pictures I have up kind of fails, but I promise to get better at that as time goes on

***AND I saw three mullets today.  Another win.

I just found a bunch of typos....I'll fix them later maybe...lol