Confessions of A Working Girl

First, I’ll start with yesterday. Yesterday was Thanksgiving. The first Thanksgiving, I might add, that I wasn’t with my family. Because most of the kids in my program were complaining about missing Thanksgiving dinner, ISA (the program) decided to take us out to a restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner. It was fun.

ISA had promised us a surprise at the dinner, and that surprise was wine. Usually on ISA outings we aren’t allowed to consume alcohol, but because Thanksgiving was a special occasion, they said that it was ok. For dinner there was turkey and corn, carrots and peas. There were a few dishes of things that may have been pureed potatoes and pureed squash. There were no sweet potatoes. T_T

Dessert was a piece of cakey type stuff that had apple on top and custardy filling. It was good, but some of the kids I sat with were sad that it wasn’t pie. And then, surprising us, they brought out more alcohol along with shot glasses. One of the alcohols was purple–supposedly it was mixed berry but it tasted closer to cough syrup.  The one I liked better was a brown one. Amaretto or something like that.

Dinner had started around 9:30ish. I left at midnight, as others were starting to leave. I didn’t get to bed until one, and my roommate didn’t get back till 3:45.I had to wake up at 4:50, since I had bought a train ticket for the 5:50 am train. So yeah, I survived the day on like 3 1/2 hours of sleep. When I got to Madrid, it was 8:30am. I had to take the metro to get to near where I wanted to go–which was the Japanese consulate in Spain. I started walking in the direction that I thought the consulate was in. Didn’t find the consulate, but I found a police station and asked them, figuring that they would probably know. I headed in the direction the police officer had said.Still not finding it, I asked a guy with a green vest–one of those vests construction workers or crossing guards wear–and he gave me directions. I finally got to the consulate around 10ish.

The consulate was behind these huge metal gates. I had to push the buzzer to be allowed in, then had to go through a metal detector.The language barrier was a little bit of a problem–I may be getting better at Spanish, but the words for getting a visa weren’t something I had necessarily learned.  

Anyway, I filled out the application, then found out that I had needed to bring a photo. So I asked if there was a place to take photos in the area.

I’m just guessing here, but I think that I’m not the first person who had asked that, since the guy from the consulate pulled a printed map from the top of a pile of printed maps and gave it to me. The map showed the consulate, and how to get to a photo place. It also showed a little more of Madrid, which was helpful.

 Anyway, I went over and got the photo taken–I now have 5 extra–and went back to the consulate. The consulate took the photo and my passport and said they’d call me….I hope that means that they’ll give it to me. The man at the consulate did say that it should be ready in less than 5 days, so I’m probably going to go back to Madrid next friday.

I wandered around for a little while after that, and decided that there wasn’t really that much I wanted to do in Madrid. I had left the consulate by 11:30, and my train ticket wasn’t till 8! So I went to the station. It was free to change the time of the ticket, so I came back to Salamanca on the 3:45 train. I kinda wanted to watch a movie, but the movie I wanted to see had already started by the time the train arrived in Salamanca.But on my way out of the train station (which is connected to a mall, where there’s a theater) I ran into some friends who also wanted to see that movie. Now we’re planning to pick a day and go see it together. Which may be better anyway.