And the Saga Continues......

I was hoping that by the time I was ready to post again that my laptop would be up and running by sadly this is not the case. I once again find myself in an internet cafe trying to get my assignments done. Yesterday was my third day in Madrid and finally a technician came out and tried to replace the broken piece, only to realize that he brought the wrong part. What bad luck....someone please send me a rabbit's foot. While I would love to write about all the beautiful things I have seen in Madrid, (despite some mishaps) and all the cool people I have met from all over the world,  it will have to wait until I have a functioning computer.  Until then here are some pictures, in no particular order of all the amazing things I have seen.

Chao for now!

Comillas 

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La Plaza de España 

El Palacio de Comunicación

El Hombre Invisible en el Prado

Ensalada Sevillana en Rodas Café

Oldest restaurant in the World (check Guinness)

La Plaza Mayor

Murphy's Law

Hola! 

My name is Melissa and I am a 3^rd year Engineering Student. Today, I begin an Aventura of a life time!! In just a few short hours I will be traveling by plane to the beautiful, historic city of Madrid, Spain to study for 4 months. I will be attending  ICAI, La Universidad Pontifica de Comillas. This is an opportunity of the lifetime and something I have dreamt of doing since I was a little girl!  How exciting, right?  Well, after today’s litany of events, I am just thankful that I have been able to make it this far. Flashback to a few weeks ago, when I was studying for my finals (which by the way I took 2 weeks early) with some friends when out of nowhere my beloved laptop crashed. I took immediate action and got it fixed as soon as possible because I knew I would need it in Spain. As all college students and many business people know, your laptop contains your entire life and when it goes down your life temporarily stops until you can get it fixed. With a lot of help (S/O college IT friends and parents) 4 days before my trip I was finally able to restore it to its previous state.  However, it still was not functioning properly. So finally, my computer company agreed to send out a technician to look at the computer today, the day very of my trip, exactly 3 hours before I had to leave for the airport. How kind of them…. Anyway the technician replaces my system board and tons of other important pieces and BAM… my computer died. Apparently in the process of changing the other broken parts the techie realized something else was broken and did not have the part to fix it. So there I am, having a meltdown, a few hours before my trip. MAJOR CRISIS: I now have no laptop and I still hadn’t finished packing either. Why is this is such a big deal? As an engineering major my laptop is full of all sorts of fun programs like CAD, ProE and Matlab. Since I left school early, my final drafting project for the term is due in a week. So, I have a project due in 8 days that I have not started and currently have no way of completing. This is classic Murphy’s Law - everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. There was no time to waste. I pulled myself together and made gameplan: email my professor and ask for an extension find a repair company in Spain. Thus, with or without my laptop, I am off to Spain for an Aventura of a lifetime. I cannot believe I have made it this far. Only 3767 miles to go! Vámonos!

Chao for now!