Madrid...so far

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So we arrived yesterday around 14.30 and we were immediately greeted by our friends at the airport. We got our 1200€ and since my landlord wasn´t quite ready to meet us we went to a local hamburger bar. Afterward I experienced the ¨botellon¨ culture, which is basically where friends get together in the middle of streets or parking lots and park their cars and put on music and socialize. We did this in the parking lot of Universidad Complutense de Madrid which is the big campus in the city. In the lawn there is a current protest going on in regards to the cost of living in Madrid...students are demanding lower rates. So for the past 6 months a bunch of youth have had tents set up in the lawn of the campus and they just hang out and don´t leave...it´s sort of a peaceful quiet protest but pretty cool. Last night we had dinner at Kastin´s and then he showed me the Chueca district, which was full of people at 2 in the morning on a Thursday night. Wow! And people drive really crazy here...it´s nothing like the United States. People drift in an out of lanes, drive really fast, fit through tight spaces, and it really made me nervous at first...but EVERYONE here drives that way. That´s what has happened so far...

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