Solo Saturday

Today was kind of a lonely day. My host family is gone for the weekend, so I sort of had the place to myself. I say sort of because the cleaning lady, Luz, was here all morning until lunchtime, so for the whole first part of the day I was still tiptoeing around and trying to stay out of the way. It was freezing in the house all morning while she cleaned because all the windows were open! I am glad of it now though because it smells nice and refreshing in here now.

I mostly just hung out in my room most of the morning. I blogged about yesterday, and did some work cleaning up a section of my dissertation prospectus that I'm hoping to send to Dr. Smith tomorrow.  Took a few pics of my room too, now that I'm unpacked:

So glad I brought a few pics of my family :-)

That's about it! I only have a few things, but it's nice that they all have a place now. 

My little closet! I'm interested to see how remixing the few clothes I brought over next few months works out. Will I get creative with it? Or will I just be totally sick of these clothes when I get home? I already broke a button on my corduroys today. Damn! I have so few pants - they can't die on me!

I waited until Luz had finished cleaning and gone before heading out for the day. I was pretty lonely, missing Casey and such, and I was starving so I decided it was time for lunch and a coffee to perk me up. Wandered up and down my street surveying my options and settled on a cute little cafe.

Another solo lunch. I don't really have any books to read for pleasure so I might start bringing a journal to these quiet lunches for one. Or just make friends.

Found this place on my street serving a good weekend menu. It's easy to choose what to have when you're just picking at random!

My tri-color pasta matches my limon fanta can!

I love that everything comes with fries here. 

I'll probably stop taking pictures of my food at some point, but lunching out is still a novelty to me, and it gave me something to DO besides just sit in silence and enjoy people watching. Got some texts from Casey at lunch too, which was nice. I haven't gotten to talk to him much since he's been so busy with filming this week. But I did use skype to call him a little while ago which was really nice. 

It was a chillier day, but I decided to walk off some of my massive lunch and coffee energy, and explore my area just a little bit more. It really is a pretty part of the city. 

Near Cuatro Caminos

Saw a pretty church - went to investigate

As far as I could tell it was just a parish church, but it's quite lovely!

Enjoying more of the colorful graffiti - it was a chilly blue kind of day 

I'm glad I took a little walk - Madrid is starting to feel more familiar each day. Plus it was good to move! Today's been a lot of sitting - lunching, writing, source searching, skyping, googling, brainstorming.

This is what I looked like most of the evening

After I skyped with my parents for a good while, which was so nice on such a quiet day, I got to work. Brought my computer out into the dining room, and just switched between working on my prospectus, and brainstorming for my conference paper, however the mood was striking at the moment. Got a fair amount of progress done I'd say, which is encouraging. I've been worried about how this conference paper was ever going to materialize or end up being good, but just the start of an outline on paper tonight is enough to get me excited about the project ahead. Plus I explored the BN online catalogue a bit, and have a few books on Marti in mind that I'd like to request to see when the library is open again on Monday - yay! 

I also followed up on plans to meet Alyssa to go to the Rastro tomorrow morning! She's one of the English MA students, and she's writing an article on the Rastro and needs to collect some more interviews there. Can't wait to see what that's like! I am hoping to get to shop around a bit too, and maybe we'll grab some lunch afterwards? We'll see what the day brings.

The day didn't end up being half bad. Quiet, yes, but I got some academic work done, had a good meal, explored, talked with my family and husband whom I miss so much, and, oh yeah, I cooked! Left alone to my own devices, I conquered the Spanish kitchen, lit the range (which was terrifying) and made some scrambled eggs. 

Omg I hope I don't burn my fingers off or blow up the kitchen.

SUCCESS!!!!!!!

Anyway, it's late already, and I'm getting up early, but I think I'd like to end the day with a hot shower, this glass of red wine that I've poured, and an episode of New Girl.