It's been a little over a week here in Madrid and my Spanish comprehension has dropped to absolute zero.  Well, maybe it hasn't dropped so much, but it's definitely not the effortless path to fluency I envisioned.  I used to think of myself as a Spanish whiz kid -- I got good grades without effort and really understood the grammar.  I could hold a fairly decent conversation.  Coming to Spain, I thought, was just the next step in a natural progression, one I'd take to with the same ease and nonchalance as learning how to read and write the language.  But no.  No