More from sunday and some more days

I did make it out of the house today, though it was pretty late. Nicolas called me around 10:00pm and we went down to the beach for some fireworks. It was cool to see out over the water and the Spaniards definitely know how to do it. There were plenty of booms and flashes, and even a nice grand finale. I was pretty impressed.

Day 25 – September 22nd – Monday
Today started off horribly. First of all, I had to wake up earlier than usual because my test was at 10:00 instead of the normal hour of 12:30. Also, I am out of money and had wanted to go to the bank to change some travelers checks. So I left the house even a little earlier to stop at Caja Madrid on my way to class. I figured they're a bank, they will take these, but no. He sent me to a different bank, but by this point, I had to just go to school. There, I took my test, which went fine and I finished quickly, but we were supposed to go on a field trip to see los Gigantes, as I had mentioned before, but we also had a meeting for our program at the same time. The meeting was mandatory, as we were to receive our schedules for the remainder of the semester. I got my schedule, only to find out that my new Spanish class is in four different classrooms, one for each day that I have it, though I do actually have a few culture classes in some of the same rooms. At least I was scheduled for the correct classes and I know I will get credit for them. This I attribute to my conselor at Ohio State, who actually knows who I am. One girl piped up during the meeting and said that she went to a very large university and actually didn't have a counselor. I laughed at this as Ohio State, with 60,000 students, is the largest in the nation. It actually turned out to be a blessing not to go on the field trip, as it started to rain as I was leaving the meeting. I had asked one of our directors where I should go to change money and when I came out of the metro at the proper stop, it had begun to pour. I eventually got to exchange a little bit of cash I had, but I didn't know I would need to have my passport to exchange traveler's checks. Also, there was no commission to change cash, but there was a 9€ charge for the traveler's checks. I though that it was supposed to be advantageous to travel with them, but so far, it has cost me 2% to get them in the first place, lots of trouble trying to find somewhere to change them, and now it will cost me 9€ more and I will have to cash all of them at once to avoid being charged another commission fee. If I had lost them, it would have been worth the extra payment, but cash seems to be the universal currency here. One thing that made me smile was the man who offered to change my money himself. He pulled out his calculator and offered my a great rate, but I had to pass. Probably one of the most obvious scams ever outside of emails telling me I won $30,000,000 from a bank in South Korea, if I will only pay the taxes for it up front... It rained almost all day, so I haven't been back outside. Plus, I don't know if i really like it out there.