My new apartment.

So I am all moved into my new apartment and I love it! My roommates are great. So far there are two Spanish girls, (one
who speaks English very well but doesn't with us unless we need to translate a specific word and another who doesn't speak
English very much at all) and an Italian girl. The Italian is hilarious and so full of live. She speaks Spanish pretty well but
always seems to add the Italian "tune" to it. We are still waiting on three other girls from somewhere in Europe. We had a
great time our first night hanging out together laughing, mixing up words and drinking wine.
The apartment is kind of old (especially thinking US standards) with tiled bathrooms and wooden floors. Our first couple days here the gas to heat the water wouldn't stay lit so we took several very cold showers/spongebaths. The increased body oder really made me feel one with the Spanish people. Now everything is working just like it should.
Friday night my American friends and I went out for tapas. For those who are unfamiliar with the tapas tradition it is when a
group of friends goes from bar to bar ordering a small appetizer or two and a round of drinks. Many places will just give you a free "tapa" with your drinks. supposedly this tradition began with Felipe VI because the flies were so bad he wanted a plate of something to put on top of his beer to keep the bugs out of it.
After the tapas my roommate and I ended up in a plaza where were saw a man doing a fire show and an all female brass band, I think they were French. There was also this crazy lady hang around the band playing her recorder. The strangest thing wasn't that he had a recorder it was that the instrument was attached to her 18 inch multicolored mullet dread lock. Mullets and dreads are so in right now in Madrid! Who knows maybe I will end up with one...

Today we went to el Rastro again. I bought two pairs of earrings for only 3 euro a piece and a huge patchwork bag for only 2
euro. After walking around those streets for a couple of hours we grabbed some quick bocadillos (sandwiches on baguettes). I got the calamari bocadillo which was a giant sandwich filled with lightly breaded and friend calamari- yum yum. A little
lettuce and tomato would have made it better but the Spanish aren't big on condiments. If you get a ham bocadillo than that
is what you get- ham and bread.