Vale Todo, Vale!

Greetings from the motherland, sort of. My grandma, although born in Cuba, was really Spanish so that counts, right? Vale. My creative juices weren´t flowing upon creating my blog address and all I´ve been hearing lately is ´vale´ which bascially just means ok or sure...Vale from the verb valer also means to be worth something, or VALue. Theres your Spanish lesson for the day. 2 words!! So vale todo...its all worth something. Every time I get lost, every time I can´t understand weird Spanish dialects, everytime an old Spanish man walks by and says ´hola preciosaaaa¨´every time I need to run an errand but everythings closed because its the afternoon. Vale!

Wanted to get this blog going because I´ve just got so much to say. Although this post will be brief, because I´m paying for the internet and mainly because it smells like fish in this cafe (I do what I can on a Sunday - NOTHING is open). One observation- there are a lot more asian people in Madrid than I would have expected. Case in point, I´m hearing some Asian language (pardon my ignorance, couldnt tell you which one). Maybe this explains the Chinatown smell thats permeating these woden walls around me. How do you say ventilation in Spanish? (Ventilación- now thats 3 words for you!!)

Some highlights:
My apartment rules. My room is enormous. Think 2 dorm rooms put together or the size of Bean Bag. Also, from the wanderings I´ve done in the last 2 days, my neighborhood seems pretty sweet as well.

The metro system rules. Its so intuitive, the hardest part is getting out of the metro and knowing where to go. Today I walked around (couldnt tell you where) ended up somehwere (again, not sure where), came across a metro station and took 3 trains and was home in 15 minutes. Gracias public transportation of Madrid, for being AWESOME and AFFORDABLE. (SF MUNI, we´re going to have some issues if I ever come back....)

Old people are ridiculously cute and nice here. I´ve already had some encounters when I get that ¨´I´m obviously lost and have no idea whats going on´ look on my face and they´re so eager to help. They also hold hands and walk around everywhere looking all adorable all the time.

ITS THE WORLD CUP!!! Enough said? Maybe not, I´ll elaborate. Argentina beat Nigeria and USA tied England yesterday. Both games I watched at this Irish pub place where I met some cool Argentines and a whole lot of rowdy English who apparently all have crazy chants memorized, perfectly timed, and situationally appropriate for any and all possible circumstances during the games. All we had was "U-S-A, U-S-A.." until some tool started singing from sea to shining sea (which obviously I was totally down with )

Well, those highlights maybe didn´t seem that fantastic I suppose, but theres more, will be more, and I´ll be sure to write home about some of it, vale?

Un beso gigante para todos mis amores estadounidenses.