The strange, the absurd, the bizzare, the awesome.

It's been great to study, socialize, and tour all of Madrid but in only a few days we've encountered quite a few strange yet hilarious aspects that we thought would be appropriate for their own posts.Albert was stunned when he first saw this billboard campaign across Madrid which portrayed one of his favorite television characters. An advertisement for Schweppes tonic which reads "Here. Now." we saw an energetic Hugh Laurie from Fox's House. Apparently Laurie's work has come to grand popularity in Madrid and it prompted this campaign.

In case you are not sure, this reads "Museum of Ham." There are a few of these across Madrid we later found out but it is still amazing how much natives love the meal. Ham can be found in almost any food including potato chips. To prove that we are at least learning a few tidbits of knowledge, the reason spaniards adopted ham as a popular food was to be a subtle attack against the islamic and jewish nations, both of which do not accept the meal. After centuries of war and oppression, the spanish catholic nation wished to shed the remains of arabic and jewish culture from the country.

In case that last description was long and boring....this is just a bull we found. We actually are going to a bull fight this week to see a long historic part of spanish culture.

All the police, maintenance, and cleaning forces in the city wear this uniform which from head to toe resembles the outfit for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles....amazing

One of the other students on the trip, wearing his "Sun's out, Guns out" t-shirt to Corpus Christi in Toledo, Spain. We got a guard carrying a very large rifle with a bayonet to pose although he didnt understand how the shirt connected to the picture.

And here it is, Albert's gripe of the day:
Spanish power Real Madrid completed the second of their 3 big summer signings which includes Brazilian midfielder Kaka (92 million dollars), Manchester United winger Christiano ronaldo (Record 131 million dollars), and most likely Valencia striker David Villa (estimated 27million). With these huge signings, Madrid most certainly seems a force in an economy that has forced so many teams to sell their most talented players. Hopefully, FC Barcelona can battle the star studded Real squad next year.