10) Horchata. I can’t believe I didn’t mention it before. For a while I thought I might be the only person in the world who likes it, but I truly don’t believe I’m drinking THAT much horchata. I can’t be keeping an entire industry afloat, can I?

11) Rain. Contrary to popular belief it doesn’t stay mainly on the plains, so the madrilenos have been ecstatic this week because of the rain. In fact, yesterday there was a thunderstorm as we were leaving school and the director broke her own “solamente en espanol” rule to run around the school chanting “esta raining! esta raining!”

12) La escuela. Our school is great. The teachers are smart and fun and I’m really enjoying meeting students from other countries. There are not that many Americans attending the school, so it’s sort of our own version of this, but wow, it can be difficult to understand a Russian speaking Spanish.

13) Juan Valdez Cafe. Okay, it’s totally a chain and not very Spanish, but it’s close to the school, it has free wi-fi and they play American music. Albeit very strange and sometimes older American music, but American music nonetheless. Which completely takes me back to my days of being an angst-ridden teenager. I sit and study and listen to music from the early 90’s and get all melancholy because I’m a little homesick – if that doesn’t scream teenager, I don’t know what does.

-cuptastic