9-26-08 At work today, I was the only “practicás” so I had to do all the tedious stuff by myself…but I guess that’s OK because it made the time go by faster. Also, I found out I’ll start SCUBA diving next week…so that’s cool. It’s weird, they’re acting like they didn’t know I was certified, but I told Pablo during my interview. I helped Ainoa with feeding…it’s cool to see how excited the people get when I go out to throw the feed into the tanks. After work, I went straight to school to start using the internet. I got t [View Full Entry]

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9 - 21 - 08 Finally, a morning that I didn’t have to wake up to an alarm! I got up around 9:30 and got dressed and ready to go to El Rastro again! I was only there for 20 min or so when it started raining! Kinda bad, kinda good. Bad because I got soaked!, Good because there weren’t very many people and the vendors were more likely to give me a discount. I found quite a bit that I wanted to get. I also got some really good deals (at least I think I did…who knows). I bought a [View Full Entry]

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This morning we had to get up early because I was going with Jasmine and her school on an excursion to Toledo. Toledo is the religious capital of Spain. It used to be the political capital too, but for reasons I can’t remember, that changed to Madrid. The reason it remains the religious capital is because back in the time when Catholicism was dominant, and most places were intolerant of any other religion (in Europe), Toledo was. It was the one place that people catholic or not were accepted. Therefore, to this day, there are many churches, cathedrals, synagogs, and mosques. [View Full Entry]

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At the aquarium today, I was completely on my own. I had my own list I had to get done. I cleaned tanks and filters, did magnesium tests in the water (which I’ll actually have to finish on Monday), and “vacuumed” the tank where coral is growing. After work, I had to rush to Eureka because today we’re going to Museo de Arte Reina Sofia - a modern art museum (the 2nd largest museum in Madrid). The whole tour (over an hour) was all on one painter, Picasso. It was very interesting - and I love the way Angel talks! He’s [View Full Entry]

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Today at work, I did a lot on my own. I also helped Alicia clean the octopus tank. It was pretty difficult, and that octopus is mischievous! He kept grabbing onto the skimmer or my hand - it was kinda creepy at first, but I got used to it. A girl I hadn’t met before brought us some yummy treats for our little breakfast break. Today, after work, I decided to stay at the zoo and just walk around - I hadn’t done that yet, so I packed a lunch and looked at all the animals. I brought my video camera, [View Full Entry]

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Today I went to work again. I was running a little late, but no one noticed. I got to help prepare the food today. That was pretty cool, but I was really slow. I bet Molly would be good at it, because it involved a lot of chopping up fish, squid, and mussels. After work, I went to school to work on my application, and I made progress, but I still have a lot to do. At 4:30, I went with Angel (at Eureka) on a little “field trip” to El Templo de Debod. We walked from our school over to [View Full Entry]

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So, today started like yesterday. I went to work at the zoo, but this time I met Pablo at the offices to get some work clothes. I got 2 huge t-shirts and some really ugly pants, but it’s cool. Then I just went to work. I met a couple other workers and followed Rosa around again. We did mostly the same things we did yesterday. After our breakfast break, I followed Alicia, another intern student. We checked some chemical levels of the water in the quarantine and used mops to soak up some water…really boring. After work, I was going to [View Full Entry]

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This morning it was so hard to wake up. My room was freezing! I guess it’s getting to be the colder season here in Madrid. I got dressed, packed a little snack, and took the Metro to Casa de Campo. At that stop I’m supposed to take the bus to the zoo, but when the bus arrived, the driver said it was going to wait there for 10 more minutes - but I was already late, but I waited anyway. When I finally got to the zoo, I was 20 min. late. I introduced to me some of the other workers [View Full Entry]

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I set my alarm so I would get up early enough to take a shower before breakfast. So I did that and went down to the common room for some breakfast and to hoard some more free food. Yesterday I made reservations with this place to do a walking tour of the gothic quarter, they said they had sent a fax with our reservations to our hostel, but the front desk says there wasn’t any. So we just walked to Plaza de Catalunya (one of the biggest plazas in Europe!) to try to find where we were supposed to meet, but [View Full Entry]

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Last night I was SO COLD. They kept the air conditioner on the whole night and didn’t turn it off until like 6am…and all I had was 1 sheet (which I used as both my bottom and top sheet). So I had to use my small jacket, my scarf, and my towel to try to keep warm!, but I guess that was better than sweating. I woke up this morning and went down to the common room to use the internet and get my free breakfast. I had granola cereal and chamomile tea…and I hoarded some tea, apple, and these [View Full Entry]

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