Melting in Madrid

Holy shit it's fucking hot! The hottest time in Madrid is usually between mid July and mid August. Well, its not even mid June yet and its 38 degrees! I love the sun, but there's only so long you can sit out in that kind of heat. Given the high temperatures, my flatmate Michelle invited me to go with her friends to a natural pool yesterday in the mountains north of Madrid, in Cercedilla. After travelling over an hour to get there, we discovered that for some unknown reason the pool was closed that day! So we sat on the grass outside all day and tortured ourselves, gazing longly at the cool refreshing water as we sat sweltering in the heat.

Later that evening we had everyone around to the flat for drinks before heading out. There was about 10 of us, half of which were Spanish which was good. After drinking and chatting for hours, we finally left the house at 0245! Bearing in mind bars and clubs would be long shut by that time back home! The Spaniards took us to a typical Spanish bar called Candela in the Lavapies area which was open until 6am.  I think we got home around 0515. At least I didn't have to worry about struggling to sleep that night!

In my quest to conquer Spain, I took my first day trip to Toledo, which is only 30 minutes by train from the centre of Madrid. Its an ancient city set on a hill and is known for its medieval Arab, Jewish and Christian monuments/architecture. Its a beautiful town and well worth the trip. While I was there I sampled the suckling pig, which is a delicacy of the town. At 20 euros its not the cheapest meal, and although it was nice, I didnt think it was worth the money.  

My lessons are still going fairly well. Alberto, the 68 year old retired doctor, continues to be my favourite student. This week I met him for breakfast churros. Not only did he pay for everything, as usual, but he brought me a book on the history of Spain and a case of white wine.

I also had a couple of new students this week too. I turned up completely drunk to one of them after going out on an impromptu date with an American guy called Mark. I'm such a professional. However, she's booked in for another lesson, so it can't have gone all that badly! The date was good fun though. I had only planned on having one or two nice chilled drinks given I had a lesson, but I'm too easily led astray, and one turned into five or six, or seven.  Mark is not at all my usual type, given he's 5"9 and pretty lean. My initial thoughts were that he was nice, but a bit dull. As it turned out, he was just holding back to make a good impression. By the end of the afternoon he was cursing and swearing and talking about all kinds of inappropriate subjects. He also told me that he'd been arrested three times and was banned from entering a city back home in the States. He became far more interesting to me after that, although his mischievous ways are behind him now. We're seeing each other again on Monday, but I still want to keep my options open. After all, I've only been here just over a week and I can't commit to one man just yet, especially not a yank!

In other news, I finally joined a gym. It's actually pretty decent, with good facilities and a number of classes. The only issue is that the air con is piss poor, and i'm dripping with sweat before I've even filled up my water bottle and started exercising. It's pretty deceptive because after 5 minutes working out I'm drenched and feel like I've done more than enough!

Tonight I'm going to head to the Sunday language exchange and then go to salsa. My flatmate Federico was telling me that the flats directly above and below us are having a big party tonight and apparently we're also going to join in to have one gigantic party. Guess that means I won't be sleeping tonight either then! Good thing i dont have a proper job!