Un nombre de chico.

January 7th, 2011

Orientation is today and I couldn't wait to see how it would turn out. With 170+ students in a hotel and having meetings and sight seeing around Madrid. My friends left early this morning to catch their plane back home and I slept 2 extra hours before check out time from the hostel and taking myself over to the hotel that I would be staying at for the next few days. When I arrived at the hotel I told the receptionist "soy con ISA" meaning "I am with ISA"; "mi nombre es Ikram. Sabes que mi cuarto es disponible?" My name is Ikram. Do you know  if my room is available? She looked me up on the list and gave me my key and told me that my roommate is William Bailey. Clearly I wasn't awake enough and took the elevator to the 5th floor and then took myself to my room and was ready to go back to sleep since the program didn't officially start until 6pm in the evening. As I am taking my hijab off I realize that the receptionist told me that my roommate is William Bailey, clearly a guy's name. It then hit me that they thought that I would be a guy and roomed me as such. I went back downstairs and asked the receptionist - "El director con la programa de ISA esta aqui? Is the director for the ISA program here? Where as "Jaime" the program director was already standing there and was like I am him. After a brief introduction, I managed to form another sentence and tell him - Jaime, mi compañero de mi cuarto es un hombre. pienso que ellos piensan que yo soy un hombre porque mi nombre es un de hombre y mujeres.. Where as Jaime laughs and responds with No. And then I'm like sí. So he takes a look at the list of hotel rooms and sees that I am right and tells the lady at the front desk that there has been a mistake and to see if there are other availabilities for me. Long story short, Jaime made me a happy camper and gave me my own room. Orientation was brief and consisted of introductions of some of the program directors and their positions and also of some basic rules for our stay in Barcelona. We then took a city bus tour of Madrid in which I fell even more in love and afterwards met with the RealComm cell phone folks where I finally received my data sim card so I can stop roaming with my Arizona number. Tomorrow was going to be long, so I decided to go to bed early and be ready for the museum tours/explorations.

1/8/2011

Wake up call seemed as if it came as soon as I finally shut my eyes. I planned on going to sleep early that night but stayed up on the internet instead. Once ready and looking decent, I went downstairs to have breakfast a la carte. We were then on our way to our first museum - Museo del Prado to see the works of famous painters such as Goya, Diego Velazquez, y Greco. My favorite paintings were that of Diego Velazquez. Such a talented artist and one I wanted to research and learn about more. Museo del Prado is so huge that you would need at least several days to see all the exhibitions and paintings that is held there. We on the other hand only had 2.5 hours to feast our eyes. Inshallah I plan to revisit if ever given the chance again. Especially since taking of photographs were not allowed. We then headed to el museo de Reina Sofia which is a more contemporary museum than el Prado which holds more classical artwork. Our visit to Reina Sofia was really short and so we were only able to see a couple of paintings mostly of Picasso's work and Dali's. Both magnificent artists. Especially Dali and the many details he has in each painting. Attention to detail was definitely beyond amazing. I found myself getting really close to most of his paintings because from afar you wind up missing all the techniques and the details that he put into each single painting that he did. Thank God for being able to take photos sin flash at Reina Sofia. After our museum tours we had free time and were able to do whatever we pleased. I was excited because I planned on visiting the egyptian Temple de Debod, going back to El parque de retiro since it was so huge, and visiting the King's Palace. All of which I didn't get to do or see because it was raining profusely. I was starting to hate the rain in España because since walking is the main transportation, everything becomes impossible. I realized that in Arizona I loved the rain because I had my car to drive me around as I enjoyed the drops of rain on my windshield and the taps on my car's roof. Where as here, if it's raining there isn't much to do besides staying in. And plus I was trying not to get sick. As I made my way back to the hotel, and my boots got soaked with water, and then my socks, and finally my toes - I kept thinking so much for not trying to get sick. I might even get pneumonia here. Rain rain please go away. Inshallah I will be able to visit Madrid again during my time here in España and get to do all the things I planned without interruption. Tomorrow is reserved for checking out and heading early in the morning to a town called Toledo.