I unfortunately start every post with a feeling of guilt for not having written in a long time. My last post was 3 weeks ago, which is the longest I've gone without posting, but instead of apologizing, I am simply going to redefine my expectations of how frequently I post, decide that once every couple of weeks is sufficient and go from there. :)

The last few weeks have been good. Fall is here. I love the cool weather, and seeing the changes in the leaves when I run through Retiro Park (my one contact with nature in the big city). I have gotten into a rhythm here in Spain with my classes, work and the like. I got Oct 11 and 12th off. The 12th was The Feast of Saint Pillar/Fiesta de la Hispanidad (Hispanicity?). It's a day of Hispanic heritage in Latin America and Spain. Monday was "puente" or a floating holiday, but also Columbus Day. It's funny for me that it exists here, too (obviously, but just to have the same holiday as in the US). Took the weekend to catch up on rest, go out with my friends, and take a day-trip to Toledo.

Toledo was really pretty. I went with my friend Edwin from Midd and a few Spanish friends of his. It's just a 45-minute or so bus ride from Madrid, so it was a perfect day trip. The center is an old, walled town on a hill. It was the capital from the time of the Visigoths in post-Roman Spain until the Moors invaded and then again with the Spanish until they moved the court to Valladolid in the 16th century for a bit before it moved to Madrid. It has a long history of coexistence between the Jews, Christians and Muslims, and then when the Spanish reconquered the city, instead of pillaging the Moors, they just kind of continued with the mix that they had. I guess in Toledo the coexistence allowed them to do a lot of translations from Arabic of the "lost knowledge" from the Greeks and Romans. Toledo, as a result of the mixed religions, has a big synagogue, a few churches including a ridiculously ornate and amazing cathedral, and a mosque. We entered in the synagogue which simple but pretty. They had a nice art exhibit of Christian and Jewish works. The mosque was partly under construction and not very large, so we decided to pass it up. And then cathedral is the big attraction. It's a mammoth, impressive display of the Church's wealth, or at least that's how I saw it. It's now part church and part museum because they've created displays of a ton of art, robes, jewels, artifacts from the 16th century and such. It was fun to see all of the pieces of its history reconstructed and preserved. But honestly, ever part of that cathedral is decorated. It's a bit ridiculous at points, but for the most part tasteful. The have a room with portraits of all of the archbishops of Toledo going back to the Middle Ages and before that I liked a lot. And then in the jewels, they have this gigantic, gold I-don't-know-what that is just gaudy, of course, but is distinct in that it was made from the first pieces of gold brought back from the New World. Overall, the cathedral shows off the grandeur of Spain in that age. The rest of the city is a bit touristy (they seriously have a knife shop every block, just in case you want to relive the era with actual weapons... or buy one of the random samurai swords that they also sell), but the narrow streets and the old architecture make it precious. Every once in a while you run into something, like the gate that I have a photo of, which is original and like 1500 years old. We climbed into the fortress to take some pictures from above, which I'll post on Facebook with the rest of the one's I took that day as well.

I think the only other big change is that I started taking some dance classes with my friend Darryl. We enrolled in a ballet one and a hip hop one, neither of which I have ever done before, but it's been a lot of fun so far. My ballet teacher is hard but honest. If we do something poorly, she won't hesitate in telling us so, but it's done in a supportive way. My hip hop teacher is young and his choreography is a lot of fun. It's fun to go between the two because in ballet it's so exact and then in hip hop, he'll tell us to stop looking like we can dance ballet and just do it relaxed. I think after watching the girls dance for so many years, I've wanted to try it myself, and so I'm finally doing that.

Other than that, I've been taking my classes. Just finished reading El Jugador (The Gambler) by Dostoievski (how we spell this name in Spanish) and the Coloquio de los perros by Cervantes for my lit class. They go surprisingly well. Cervantes is a bit more difficult because it's so old, but I can just sit down and read it, which is a cool feeling. My flatmate always comments on my books and tells me that most Spaniards have never read what I've been reading. It's such an ironic combination that I can read the great works of literature, but then sometimes I flounder in daily conversation. Econ is going well. Learning a lot about Spanish economic history (as one would expect from the course title) but also just about economic history in general and how it's studied. The professor is a strict, hard-line jerk to be honest (for example, last week, 5 weeks into the class, he said that some students write so poorly that they should just drop the course right then because there is no way that they'll pass. Although it may be true, he just goes about it in the wrong way). Nevertheless, he does know his stuff (nearly every week we have an article of his and then everyone else cites his work), so it works out. Lately he's been throwing jokes into his lectures, so maybe he'll turn out to be nicer than he seemed at the beginning, but we'll see. My grammar class is mostly boring. The professor is great and vibrant and fun, but the material is really basic for me since we have such varied levels. The directors of my program initially suggested that I not take the class and instead do one with the Spaniards in the university, but then they eventually decided that I might as well just take the one with my peers to be more included in the program. Not sure what would have been the better choice, but I guess I'll just take it as a reinforcing review.

Work is going well. I'm currently writing this blog entry at work, which goes to show that I don't always have things to do, but for the most part, I've been doing much more interesting and productive things recently. I'm doing a lot of accounting and the like for the various projects that Fundeso has abroad, so it's a lot of excel spreadsheets and accounting programs, entering numbers and moving money through the banks. Lots of patterns and making things balance, both of which my analytic mind enjoys. The main advantage of the job is that I work with great people. Last week I saw co-worker play in his band. They call themselves Billy Bob Dillon and pride themselves on being the most bearded group in Spain (he's Basque, which with common stereotypes here in Spain, perfectly explains the beard.) Last Thursday we had our first "English day" in the finance department, where we attempted to speak in English as a group, but they usually would say a phrase and then talk about what they just said in Spanish. They're all in English classes, but as for all language students, there's some hesitancy to put it into practice, especially when you're with someone who speaks your language better than you speak his or hers. It was fun though.

I've been feeling more homesick lately, a little bored with the routine here in Madrid, and fed up with some drama that is going around my friends, so I've decided that I need to travel somewhere and get my mind off of things. Planning on heading up to San Sebastian in the Basque country next weekend to visit a friend and am excited about that. This weekend is obviously Halloween back home, which isn't much of a holiday here, but a few of the clubs are throwing costume parties, so I think we'll be celebrating that. Then Monday is a national holiday for All Saints Day. Looking forward to another long weekend.

Hope all is well with you guys back home or in whatever country you find yourself. Big hugs.