Esta semana y comida mala.

Not a lot has happened in the last week, but I figured I should give you all an update anyway. Today, I have been here for 7 weeks, which means 13 weeks until I’m back home! It’s blown my mind how fast time is flying! The semester is already a third over. It feels like I just got here a few weeks ago! I think once the semester is over, I will not want to go back home.

The weeks here are really not too exciting. Just going to school, going out after siesta or after dinner, teaching English, and skyping. My best friends in Eau Claire and I have arranged to skype every Thursday night, which I love. It’s so nice getting to still see them and talk to them. I try to skype with Alex as much as I can, which usually isn’t much, but it’s alright. I have been doing A LOT of reading here this semester. I’m on my seventh book of the semester now. Not having internet at home has really limited what I can do when I’m bored. Teaching English has been fun so far. Irene is a completely typical 14-year-old girl. She goes shopping pretty much every other day and hangs out with her friends all the time. She also REALLY wants to go to New York. That is her dream. However, she is so advanced in English that it’s sometimes hard to figure out what to do with her. We’ve been working on advanced vocabulary and at the end of the hour we play an English game. If anyone has any ideas for games that entice conversation or just learning English, let me know. We are playing MASH next week, for those who know what that is.

The only thing that I really don’t like here is our host mom’s food. Both Kelly and I hate it. We have fish every single day, without fail. I came here liking fish and now I hate it because I’m so sick of it. When we’re not eating fish, it’s usually still pretty gross. I’ve had many times where I just cannot eat the food. I try everything, but rarely like it, so a lot of the time I just go with a few bites of dinner, some fruit, bread, and a snack later. Or sometimes, I’ll just eat it super fast and force it down my throat. It’s not my ideal situation, but it’s alright. I’m really glad I have a nice host family and a good roommate. Like I said earlier, my host mom does so much for us, and I am so grateful for that. A few people here have had to move to a new family because theirs were so awful. I would absolutely hate to be in that situation.

One night this week, we had shrimp at dinner with the heads still on, of course. Our host parents usually leave us alone at dinner so it’s just Kelly and me. So, I took a shrimp and ripped the head off like I was supposed to, but all of a sudden it squirted this brown stuff at me and I screamed. The shrimp was attacking me with its brains or something! Then Kelly tried to do it for me and it squirted the brains out at her too, and at that point I just couldn’t eat it. Of course, at this point we were laughing so hard, and slightly shocked that our host mom didn’t come in to check to make sure we were ok after I screamed. Anyway, I couldn’t eat the shrimp anymore because all I could think about was the squirting brown stuff, so… we threw a couple out the window. That was probably the funniest thing that’s happened at dinner so far this semester.

Anyway, I’m getting super excited for London this weekend! We are leaving on Sunday and coming back on Wednesday, since we have Monday and Tuesday off and flights are WAY cheaper that way. I’m so excited to see London. It was definitely in my top five places I wanted to see in Europe this semester.

So, I didn´t want to post tihs earlier because it wasn´t for sure and set in stone, but now I think it just about is. After my program ends here at the end of May, I am planning on staying a week longer to go to Latvia! I am so excited - I never thought I´d actually ever be able to go! I´m about 99% sure that I´m going. Yay! Soo yah, that´s my big news!

¡Lisboa!

This weekend, I traveled to Lisbon, or Lisboa, Portugal. We left on the train at 3am and arrived at 10:30 on Saturday morning. When we got to Lisbon, we walked around the city for a bit, but it was raining miserably. So we decided to check out the Oceanario Aquarium. It was pretty cool. They had really cute otters that we realized resembled three people in our group. After the aquarium, the weather had gotten better and the rain had stopped. We decided to take a ride in gandalas over the ocean.


Then we headed back to the area near our hostel. Some of the group went up a huge hill to find a castle, but Andrea, Alie, and I decided to walk through the city and sit and talk by the beach. Alie and I put our feet in the water to say we´ve been in the Atlantic Ocean! This was my first tme seeing the Atlantic! It was so nice, though, just sitting by the water at night. Definitely one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Once everyone else caught up to us, we headed back and checked into the hostel. This hostel was amazing. It was rated the third best hostel worldwide in 2010 and for good reason. Super cheap, really nice rooms, places to lock our stuff, free linens, free internet, free breakfast. Fully stocked kitchen, bar, parties every night, and free shots at 11:30pm. The staff were super nice and helpful and we were able to meet some people from all over the world. Perfect hostel. I´ve found from Barcelona and now Lisbon that I kind of like hostels better than hotels. I know I´ve been lucky so far, though.

Steve made dinner for us again Saturday night. He made amazing pasta. Such a good cook! He had a bit too much food, though, so we shared with some other people at the hostel and it was a big hit.
Sunday morning we got up and packed up our stuff and headed out. While trekking through the city, we saw a street performer who had two absolutely adorable puppies! The people here who look for money on the streets are smart. Lots of them have puppies, which I bet makes them most of their money. Anyway, we stopped and I got to play with puppies for the first time since I´ve been here! It was great. Even though I see dogs all the time, I can´t pet them or play with them, so I´ve been missing dogs a lot. And these puppies were so precious. I was a happy girl. After this excitement, we went and saw the ocean again, then took a tram to a famous monestary. It was pretty cool. We realized it looked a lot like Hogwarts, which was pretty exciting. After the monestary, we went across the street to a street market. We spent a while there, shopping, until we had to start making our way to the train station. We took the metro to the station and, with little time on our hands, we got into a panic about where our train was supposed to be. We figured it out, though, and made our train, ready for the seven-hour ride back to good old Valladolid.


Some random things about Lisbon:

• It is a lot like San Francisco. It´s super hilly and also has cable cars. It is said to be San Francisco´s cousin city.


• We were never really sure what language to speak, or what language other people were speaking. I think most things were in Portuguese, but we weren´t always sure. And some people spoke English, some Spanish, some, it seemed like neither.


• ¨Obrigado¨ is ¨thank you¨ in Portuguese, the one word I was able to learn.


• Barcelona was better, but Lisbon was stil cool in its own way.

Overall, great trip. Two weeks until London!!

Mis Viajes.

Yesterday we went on another excursion with the program. We just went around the province of Valladolid, though (basically the county of Valladolid). Honestly, it was a really boring excursion. We saw a museum of an ancient Roman village, then tried wine from the Roman times – oh my gosh, the wine was horrible. It tasted like meat – absolutely disgusting. There were only a handful of people in our huge group of students who actually liked it. Then we took the bus to see a big castle, which was probably the most exciting part of the whole day. We took some stairs way down underground to see a well where they used to keep prisoners. Then we went back up the stairs to go up more stairs to a tower with a nice view, but compared to the view in Segovia and the views we saw in Barcelona, it was really not much. My legs are very sore now, though. Then we drove to another town which was completely empty and we just kind of walked around there for a while. Very boring. They had even told us that this excursion wasn’t going to be fun before we left. But, luckily, that was supposed to be the worst one, so now it’s over. I’m really excited for our last excursion in May to Santander. Santander is on the coast and it’ll be nice and warm in May so that one should be cool.

So it turns out that I’m not able to go to Paris anymore. The train ended up being way too expensive and on top of hostel and food costs, and the concert ticket, the trip would’ve been too expensive to be worth it. I was super bummed when I found out I couldn’t go, but now I am going to go to Portugal this weekend and I’ll probably be able to see Madrid too. So I guess the two new trips make up for it. Enrique will miss us, though. Portugal should be really fun. I’m not quite sure what we’re all doing, but it’ll be a great group of people and Portugal is supposed to be really pretty. I, as always, am really excited for the photos I’ll take. We also booked our tickets for London yesterday! People have been needing to buy my tickets online for me because I no longer have a credit card to use, which is a pain, but hopefully I’ll have my new credit card soon. I’m so excited for London, though. There will only be three of us for this trip, but it’ll still be amazing. I absolutely love being able to travel so much here. For the rest of the semester, I only have three weekends where I’m not traveling. Thinking about that makes the semester seem like it’s going to end so soon! Time has been slipping through my fingers here, but I’m loving every second. I’m not feeling incredibly homesick anymore, thankfully. Of course I still miss everyone a ton, but the homesickness is no longer lingering. Now, I’m just so happy I’m here. I have realized that right now, I’m living the life I’ve always dreamed of – traveling the world and being independent, learning so much not only about Spanish and the culture here, but also about myself and the world. This really is an incredible experience for me and I feel so lucky I was able to do this. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Well, I think that’s about all I have for now. When I’m not traveling here, life is starting to become a bit mundane. Not boring or anything, just repetitive and normal. I’m getting used to living here and everything is now becoming ordinary.

Oh, I forgot this last photo in my Barcelona post. Here’s a photo of some authentic Spanish food. Makes you hungry just looking at it, right? I bet you’re all drooling right now. ;)

¡Barcelona!

This weekend, I went to Barcelona with six other people from my program. It was such an amazing trip! I loved the city so much and everything was so fun. Barcelona was definitely one of my favorite trips ever, even if it was just for a weekend.

Our journey started out in the airport in Valladolid. Everything ran smoothly getting to the airport and getting on the plane. The plane ride was only an hour long and before we knew it, our adventure had begun! I was traveling with six other friends named Andrea, Steve, Lisa, Alie, Emily, and my roommate Kelly. We got to the Barcelona airport around 11:30 pm on Friday night. We then took a bus to Plaza Catalunya and found our hostel, named Hip Karma hostel. It was such an incredibly nice hostel! The seven of us were in a room for twelve. The hostel was modernly furnished with a kitchen, really nice private showers, computers with free internet, and comfortable beds with curtains around them. This was my first hostel, so it could be dangerous that it was so nice because now my expectations will be set high for the future. It was very cheap though – only 11€ per night. On Friday night we were so exhausted from traveling so we just went right to sleep.

Saturday morning, Steve got up early to make us breakfast. He offered us a deal this weekend that he would cook meals if we paid for ingredients – he loves cooking, so it worked out perfect for us! He made delicious French toast with nutella along with fruits and juice on Saturday. On Saturday and Sunday, we decided to be stereotypical tourists and get a two-day tourist bus pass. My dad would probably be disappointed. But it turned out to be a very cheap form of transportation for us and stopped at all the places we wanted to see. We also loved sitting on top of the bus. Saturday we took the bus to meet up with Andrea’s friend Sarah who lives in Barcelona and saw Mont Juic, the 1992 Olympic stadium. It was huge! It was a pretty cool sight to see. Then we got lunch and wandered Barcelona. Lisa and Emily split up with us to go and see a Barcelona soccer game and Sarah took the rest of us to the harbor. So pretty. Eventually we headed back to Plaza Catalunya and checked out Barcelona’s enormous Corte Inglés. Then we went back to the hostel and Steve made us some rice for dinner. We decided to have a chill night that night after a long and busy day.

Sunday morning, Steve made us scrambled eggs with fruit and toast. Again, his food was amazing. We really saved so much money from him cooking for us instead of going out to eat. What a nice guy. We then headed to Plaza Catalunya to catch the bus, but first fed the pigeons. That was really cool. I only fed them a little bit because I didn’t buy birdseed but being surrounded by them was really neat. Then, we took the bus to see La Sagrada Familia, a colossal church that has been being built since the 1800’s. It is still under construction but almost done. The expected date of completion is 2020, I believe. Sagrada Familia was so cool. The size and detail of it was mind-blowing and it was so pretty inside and out. After we saw Sagrada Familia, we met up with Sarah again and went to Parque Güell, a huge park full of art by Gaudi, a famous Spanish artist. The park was super pretty and had some incredible views. It was very cool. After we were done exploring Parque Güell, we headed back to the hostel and Steve made his best meal yet – pasta. He is seriously such a good cook. After dinner we hung out for a bit and got ready for the superbowl! We got to see the superbowl in a huge bar with hundreds of other people our age from all over the world – mostly from England and America. It was such a fun time. The game didn’t start until 12:30 am in Barcelona so we were out pretty late. It really was a blast, though.

Monday morning, everyone was exhausted, of course, but we had to check out at 11 am so we got all our stuff together and then headed to go and see La Rambla, a massive street of shopping, with street vendors and street performers and the like. La Rambla is where the weekend turned for the worse. We had been hanging out, walking around and checking out the street. We then started heading toward the beach when I realized my wallet was not in my purse. I frantically searched everywhere but it was nowhere to be found. So, we went back along La Rambla, back to everywhere we had stopped, but it was nowhere. La Rambla is very well-known for having many pick-pocketers so I think my wallet was stolen. We were directed to the police station to file a report, where we spent probably at least an hour filling out paperwork. I think it’s highly unlikely that I will get it back, but I figured it was still worth it. At first, I was seriously panicking, but my friends helped me calm down and I talked myself down. My passport and debit card were not stolen, so I was still able to get home and I’m still able to access my money. My dad cancelled my credit card and ATM card. I did have about 100€ in my wallet, which sucks that I lost it, but it is just money. So many worse things could’ve happened. I didn’t get hurt and I still have the really important things. So all I really lost was the 100€, my driver’s license and some other IDs, insurance cards, my house keys, and my keychain my friend got me last year. I know it’s a bad situation, but I’m staying positive, because what’s done is done – nothing is going to change, and I can either sit around and complain about it or accept it and move on. I choose the latter. Anyway, after we finally got out of the police station, I left to find that my friends had bought me some ice cream. That definitely helped to make me feel better. After all the craziness, we made our journey back home.

Some random things about Barcelona:
It is so warm!! It was sunny and in the 70’s all weekend – so beautiful! Also, everyone thought we were from England. That was a nice change – people not hating us for once for being Americans. Apparently it’s hard for them to distinguish the English accent from American ones. We barely spoke Spanish at all, unfortunately. Everyone there spoke English, and also, Barcelona’s actual language is Catalan, which is a mix of Spanish and French, so we wouldn’t have understood the language at all anyway. I would say that most of the people we saw in Barcelona, though, were tourists – hence everyone speaking English. There were American chains everywhere, like Starbucks, McDonalds, Subway, etc. Barcelona is beautiful. It is much more modern than Valladolid, and also way bigger, but there were so many things that were just incredibly pretty. I just loved everything about Barcelona, except the pick-pocketers, of course. I honestly really want to go back. I’m missing it already. This was such a fun trip, and a great start to the many trips I’ll be making this semester!

Unas Cosas Pequeñitas

This week has been crazy! I´ve had trip-planning meetings almost every night in addition to studying for the three tests I have this week and getting an English teaching job. I have no time for sleep!

Well, as I just mentioned, I finally got an English teaching job. I´m teaching a 14-year-old girl named Irene (pronounced ee-ray-nay). She is so sweet as are her parents. However, she´s been learning English since she was 3, so she´s already fluent. We´re just having conversation classes so she´s able utilize her English. She´s very polite and kind of shy so I was having trouble coming up with things to talk about. Oh, and she also knows French! So cool!

I have officially decided that I hate trip-planning. It takes such a long time and it´s so complicated. I know it will be worth , though, when I´m actually there. At one of our trip-planning meetings, we were in an internet cafe and the bartender decided she hated us enough to turn off the WiFi. The next night when the group went back there for another meeting, she turned the music volume up super high so they couldn´t hear each other. We don´t go there anymore.

Yesterday, I finally got to check out Campo Grande, the huge park in the city here. There are peacocks everywhere there! I took tons of photos but I don´t have them with me so I can´t post them quite yet. But it was really awesome!

Now, I am getting ready and getting very excited for Barcelona tomorrow! Look forward to a blog post all about it sometime next week!