The Six Million Dollar Man

What do I mean by the title 'A Death of an Exchange Student - Sort of'? Well, you guessed it!

I spent last night in a club called Cocó. And then the details:

The party was organized by UC3M ESN (the Erasmus Student Network guys in UC3M). To get to the party I had to go to their office here at the Leganés campus. When I had bought the ticket, the guy who had sold it to me told me to come to Plaza del Rey (The King's Square in English) at 10 pm for some kind of a pre-party-thingie.

'Right, gotcha.'

So, I was there. I was actually there at 9.45 pm just to be there on time. I came a bit early because I had read from the UC3M ESN facebook page that the group who'd gather to the square would already leave at 10.15 pm.

'Bad mistake.'

I was getting a bit anxious when my watch was telling me that it was already 16 minutes past ten and I hadn't seen ANYONE who'd have looked like an exchange student. (What I actually saw was mainly gay couples making out on the benches of the plaza.) While I was waiting for anything to happen, a Spanish couple of about my age approached me. We spoke a while, mainly about where I was from, etc. They also asked whether I had any plans for the night. I told them that I was going to a discoteca (see, I know some Spanish) called Cocó. They laughed and told me that it's a gay disco! Right... The first disco that I'd go to in Spain would be a gay disco.

Finally, student-like people started pouring into the plaza. I soon found that I was ill-equipped for the occasion: I had nothing to drink with me! So, I had to join the 'Let's go and buy some beer' Task Force. After a few rounds around the surrounding blocks our TF had reached its goal. Mission accomplished. When we returned to the plaza I found out that we were going to stay there for a while. Why did I come early? I have to get rid of that exhausting habit.

'You're not in Finland, stupid.'

But, anyways. The people were nice. More than nice, let's say fabulous. Thanks for the evening. And I really was in need of someone to talk to because I haven't had too many conversations here in Madrid.

At around midnight we went to the disco. Well, actually we had to wait for about a century to get in. But hey, I'm not complaining because I was in good company. I won't go into detail about the disco itself because you can all more or less imagine what the place was like: light, music, alcohol, that sort of thingies. I stayed until 6 am and had to take a taxi to get home to Leganés. (See, I already called my flat my home!) I was soooo drunk, I'm telling you! It's a real wonder that the driver understood where I wanted to go to and even a greater wonder that I was able to climb the stairs up to my apartment. Although, when I woke up this morning I saw that I had been able to make a REAL mess of all my clothes and other basic, daily stuff: Everything was on the floor, gathered in heaps of all sizes. Great, way to go Jope.

And then I took a glimpse at my watch (which was on the floor, too). It was 3 o'clock. In other words, I had missed all my lectures today. Fantastic. On top of everything else, I had a major headache. I mean, on a scale from 1 to 10 the headache had to be at least 9.6. And I had nothing to ease the pain. At that point I could appreciate the fact that my parents are doctors and that they always maintain at least a half-decent medicine cabinet at home. (I was actually given pills to take with me to Madrid: something for diarrhea, allegy pills and antibiotics. But no painkillers!) So, I decided to sleep some more. When I finally woke up at 5 pm I understood that I had slept through the whole day. That's something I don't do every day. I can't actually remember any other day such as this. Wow, this exchange thing is amazing. I'm already experiencing new, wonderful stuff.

You know what? This day wouldn't have been all that important anyway. But tomorrow, on the other hand, IS a big day...  LP is coming to Madrid!