Snow in Madrid

We offically got some snow in Madrid the other day! I couldn't help but walk around and take too many pictures. It's been a perfect week for the heating in my room to break down. Really. I wear two layers to bed (including a scarf around my head and a hood) and it is still quite cold. I have to maintain the fetal position all night so I don't wake up.

I think the cold is causing me to have strange dreams. Last night I was in Auschwitz and I was escaping from the Nazis with a baby to take care of. I think I found the baby in one of the barracks. But I also had a dream about Amy and Derek's dog John Brown! I found a stray dog that looked a lot like him. Only the new dog had eyes on the back of his head. I didn't find that strange in my dream.

Also, today some workers started some repairs in our kitchen. The microwave has been taken out, the fridge is wrapped in a huge blanket, and all my dry goods are in a bag in the hallway. The oven has never worked, so at least I won't miss that. My housemate told me that they should be done in a week. This translates to a minimum of two weeks. They were supposed to start yesterday but it snowed. Good enough reason to not go to work I guess. Then when I saw them today they were standing around, doing absolutely nothing. On the first day! Why am I paying rent again?

To top things off, it seems that everyone is extending their Christmas holidays until next week. It's January 12th, people! Let it go! I'm anxious to get back to work. I guess it's the American in me. To make matters worse, I've spent a good bit of my money so I'm broke. What a long, cold winter!

Football Fever!

Went to an Irish pub last night to watch a soccer game and learned a whole slew of new Spanish profanities. I'm the constant student, always working on vocabulary. Also, have been renting French films, Swedish films, German films and have to watch them with Spanish subtitles. But it's good practice for me.

I did rent one American movie, Vicky Christina Barcelona, because I was curious how an American movie might portray Spanish life. I thought it was an interesting enough movie but I didn't recognize Spain in it at all. It seemed more like Hollywood's polished version of Spain. I guess Woody Allen understands New York better than Europe.

I've been asking Spaniards if they've seen the movie, curious to hear their reaction, and it's been overwhelmingly negative. They think it portrays Spanish people has unrealistic wine-drinking, orgy-seeking crazy people. I also thought it was funny because some people were alarmed that the protagonists were listening to Spanish guitar and watching Flamenco in Barcelona. Everybody knows this comes from the south. However, the Spaniards seem to like Woody Allen a lot and this is his only blemish. Will be watching Intermezzo tonight...