A new beginning

This post had been in the offing long enough that I was finally beginning to believe that it was never gonna happen. And it would never have had it not been to a 3-day cold and throat infection which is right now not only keeping me from attending a birthday party but also restricting me totally to the confines of the bed. And while I'm here, I figured why not get this over with. This could either be a start to hopefully a long journal or may be just one of those one odd instances when I get on the internet and try something for the fun of it. We'll see in due course.

How did I get here?

The first week of my MBA classes ended just a little over a day ago. This was followed obviously by a rad party which in the hindsight might have added a few more days to my illness :( Anyways, the first week of classes went through without much hiccups. Sure, most people spent fewer hours sleeping than reading but I guess everyone had expected that to happen anyways, so no complains so far. As expected Marketing and Entrepreneurial Mgmt turned out to be the classes I liked the most but Accounting proved to be a wonderful surprise considering my fascination for numbers.

I complete 1.5 months in Spain tomorrow, a place that I longed to visit. But now that I'm all settled down here, it seems like any other place I have been to before. The cleanliness level (or dirtiness rather) is pretty much the same as back home in New Delhi at least if you consider the city part of Delhi. The one thing I found different, however, is the people. Not in terms of the behavior, cause you can pretty much find all your garden variety jerks and good guys here, but in terms of their attitude I would say. They love to party and know how to enjoy life here. For gods sake, I haven't been to a single club that opened before 1 am and closed before 8. Most days people party till the morning and then go off to class straight afterwards. I feel too much of a chicken coz I haven't doing this yet and this is what inspires me everyday more and more to get there. This I think would be the perfect time for first of my unbreakable :P public promises to try this out.

IE Campus in Segovia

One thing I liked about the place was that even if you don't speak the language, its much easier to get by than others would have you believe. Most big stores have an english speaking personnel and the streets here are so organized that you never get lost. Of course it helps if you have a smartphone in your pocket with loaded maps :) I was hoping it would be much harder thus promoting the need to learn Spanish. However, when you hear others speak something you don't understand that's motivation enough. So, I eagerly await the info session this Monday for the spanish language course but having heard negative reviews about it, I'm also looking for alternative options. The audio lessons that I was banking upon were able to do only so much good (no offense, Ira, my lovely friend who generously provided me with the cds for the same) but now I need hands on experience.

So, I march forward with hopes to learn Spanish and lot more of MBA stuff as I enter the second week of the course. While staying in bed does keep you away from friends and parties, it gives me a lot of time to prepare the cases for the coming week, catch up on my reading and finally get to the one thing that was being procrastinated for the last 2 years, writing this blog.

My first room in Madrid that I shared with the sweetest and the most beautiful Italian girl

I hope I can come back often and update this space as much as I like. You'll find that I have posted some sporadic photos in this entry which have not much meaning to the surrounding text. But this is for the benefit of those friends of mine who constantly pester me photos of Madrid. Hopefully the next set would be more meaningful.

Until later