Paciencia

concluding post to come soon!


here, enjoy this video of an adorable kitten.



and baby otters

Fotos

One week left. I'm not sure what I want to say to conclude this blog yet so this is a photo post of my favorite memories/pictures, not based on quality of photo or anything like that, but just the ones I happen to personally like. Some are new, some have been on the blog before. Some are stolen pictures, just like my camera as of late April, from Amanda or Jessica. May I suggest you play a fun game trying to guess where each picture is from? They aren't in order.

Senderísmo

So, it's been a while. After I got back from Copenhagen, I took my grammar exams and passed each of them! That weekend, I went hiking outside of Madrid with Amanda, Jessica, and Travis. We took the train for an hour, then arrived in a little town. We had to walk all the way through the town to get to the park, and then the trail was this old Roman road. Unfortunately for the Romans and for us, the road lead directly up the steep mountain. As I possess little to no leg muscles, it was a difficult climb for me, but the beautiful scenery made up for it. When we got to the top of the mountain, there were still patches of snow! Crazy!







The program took us on our last trip together also. This one was just a day trip, not an overnight or anything. They took us up north a bit, to a few cities so small that no one's host parents had heard of them. We saw Roman ruins, so obviously I was really excited. The Romans were really smart, and took advantage of the landscape to build the houses in this area, because there were a lot of rocky cliff type things, so the Romans just carved out of the rock and built mud structures coming out. On top of one cliff, we saw the floorplan and foundation for what is said to be the biggest Roman house in Spain, and it was pretty big, probably the size of the ground floor of my house in Clinton. All of it reminded me of the Southwest and pueblos and stuff. There was wild thyme growing everywhere, and the sun was heating it up and we were walking all over it so the whole place smelled delicious. We got to walk through an aquaduct that had been carved through rock, like a tunnel. It was pretty scary because at points there was literally no light and everyone was blind. And we ate a delicious lunch, and went to the largest fortress in Europe that is like a mile long or something. The landscape was so beautiful, a patchwork of different colored fields as far as you could see. I was glad to go, especially because it's really nice to have the whole program together! It seems to never really happen anymore, and there are people I really like but just don't see all that often. Also, I'm going to miss living in a place where Roman ruins are so common. Europe is awesome for that.

The Mansion:


House?
Fortress


Besides that, my life has been pretty scholastic. I had my poetry presentation last week, on Tuesday. I wrote out everything that I was going to say, like a script, and just read from my paper. We, the Americans in my class, all decided that it would be okay for us to do that, instead of standing up there and winging it like some of the overachieving Spanish kids. My presentation was a little rough, I was really nervous and had some problems pronouncing the words I was reading. Especially since my poet was all crazy into alliteration! Here is an example:

¡Tengo tantas tonterías! …
tentempiés, tímpanos, témpanos,
tengo tinta, teterillas,
tengo pompanos y púrpuras

Admittedly pretty cool, but hard to read when you are a nervous American.

Currently on my plate is my art history paper. I changed my work to Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein because I wasn't finding any information on the Miró I wanted to do originally. I'm slowly trudging through researching and writing. I think tomorrow I'm going to the Reina Sofia library to see if there are any books on it.

I'm trying to balance having a lot of work with enjoying my last weeks here. Thursday night some kids from the Paris program came to visit, and we hung out in their hotel room for a while and then went out to a discoteca. I didn't end up getting home until 5:30 in the morning! Probably only the second time that I've done that my whole semester, but it's so normal for the Spanish kids to do it. I don't understand how they can do that every weekend! Then, the day after Jessica and I went exploring in the middle of the city. We walked all around La Latina, Sol, and Tirso de Molina area. Jessica had randomly run into this guy that is friends with her boyfriend at Bard on the metro the day before, so we met up with him and showed him around. We had chocolate y churros, and then went to the Retiro and rented a paddle boat! It was really fun and really cheap, only 4 euros for all of us. Then we walked down to the Reina Sofia, and parted ways with him. By this point, Jessica and I had been walking around for 6 hours and decided it would be a good idea to go home for dinner. He was really nice, and i love doing the touristy things that we never get to do otherwise.

Today, I finally met my host dad's son. I had met his daughter before, but both of them came over because it was his birthday yesterday/today? No one actually told me specifically that it was his birthday, but I figured it out. He got the speakers that I have for a present, so we both thought that was pretty cool. His daughter brought over their dog, but Luisa FREAKED out because she is scared of dogs, even though this dog was a tiny little thing. So the daughter had to drive it back home haha. And so here I am.. my art history paper is so strange. It's just different categories that we have to answer, not one coherent paper. We have to number and letter each section, and they don't flow very well. Ugh. Well..

Ambicioso

so, thank you to everyone that wished me a happy birthday! it was indeed happy. unfortunately to those who did not know, my whole purse was stolen last thursday night, so that SUCKED but the next day i flew off to copenhagen with my intact passport and some euros i had laying around my room and had a blast celebrating my birthday. i went with my always traveling partner amanda and we stayed with one of her friends from skidmore. he lives in an apartment with other students and it was really nice to be able to hang out in a house with people again, because in spanish culture you don't really hang out with people in your house. we were not the best tourists and started our days kind of late, but we managed to see a good deal of the city. i met up with one of my skidmore friends, and then also friends from home and it was really nice to see old familiar faces! also, we ate at wagamama and that was exciting. copenhagen is a really beautiful city, really quaint and accessible. we took a really neat canal tour that led us around the city by boat and we saw the new opera house and went through the canal with all the house boats and with the apartments with large balconies overlooking the water (very pricey, i imagine) and we saw the little mermaid statue. and we went to christiania, which is this crazy place that is like a commune or something. you walk through this gate and basically walk out of copenhagen and into somewhere completely different. it's overrun by bushes and flowers and old military buildings that people live in now, and everyone is selling joints on picnic tables and there are little dirt paths everywhere and trails along a lake. it was really neat to see.
now, i am back in madrid, probably for good. i have two exams for grammar class next week along with a presentation for my english class. the week after, i have to do a 20 minute presentation on my spanish poet. the week after i have the 10 page paper on my spanish poet due as well as my 10 page art history paper on "harlequin's carnvial" by miró due. then, i have my 11 page paper on british feminism in the 1960's due the 28th. THEN i go home! it seems like time will fly by. but yuck, so much work.

here are lists i have been making if anyone is curious about my deepest desires.

Books I Want to Read Over the Summer

• Nimrod Flipout by Etgar Keret
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer
• I Was Told There Would Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
• Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes
• The New Kings of Non-Fiction edited by Ira Glass
• The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
• The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
• The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Eric Larsen
• Or Perish in the Attempt: Wilderness Medicine in the Lewis and Clark Expedition by David J. Peck
• The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett
• More Information Than You Require by John Hodgman
• The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker
• Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul by Karen Abbott
• Foreskin’s Lament by Shalom Auslander
• London Fields by Martin Amis
• Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
• Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov
• Stiff by Mary Roach
• My Mistresses Sparrow is Dead edited by Jeffrey Eugenides
• The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God and Other Stories by Etgar Keret


AND Food I Want to Eat When I Get Home

Pancakes, waffles, bacon, scrambled eggs with cheese, cheeseburgers, egg rolls, quesadillas, tamales, enchiladas, burritos, lo mein, ramen noodles, grilled cheese, Greek yogurt with honey, tea with honey, chicken noodle soup, chocolate chip cookies, birthday cake, chips and salsa, potato and leek soup, stir fry, grilled sausages, grilled vegetables, lasagne, pasta with pesto, pasta with tomato sauce, crepes, peaches, Doritos, blueberries, tacos, guacamole, cupcakes, Midnight cookies, raspberries, chili, cinnamon buns, French toast, meatballs, green beans, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, pigs in a blanket, garlic bread, bagels with cream cheese, nachos, Wheat Thins, onion rings, barbeque sauce, chicken nuggets, grilled shrimp, New Haven style pizza, broccoli, cauliflower, corn on the cob, pickles.


in other news, i come home in four weeks.

Bodegón

this week has gone by really quickly, considering at this time last week i was in italy. it's good to be back in madrid; i'm back in a place i know and get around easily, and can communicate with the people. being in other countries made me appreciate how much spanish i really know.
tuesday i skipped class at university in the morning because i needed to register for skidmore classes in the middle. i'm taking medieval drama (for my early period requirement in english), 19th century american lit with a professor that i love, and then my other two classes got to be anything i wanted! it was like freshman year all over again, except this time i don't need to search for things fulfill requirements! so i'm taking a class about the history of the 4 nations in great britian, and intro to latin (if i don't get into classical mythology, which i am still waiting to hear about from the professor). it should be a good semester. only two literature classes, not three like in the fall at skidmore. and i'm taking a break from spanish because i only need one more class, and it was offered at the same time as medieval drama, so i'm going to wait until next semester. ahhh senior year! it scares me to be so old! i'm turning 21 next week and i just cannot believe that i am finally this old! my last year at skidmore is coming! thank goodness i plan to go straight to grad school because i am not ready to live outside of the school world yet. my friend jessica and i have made a list of things we want to do next year, and i will share it with you:
-make beer and wine (to drink at graduation!)
-make yogurt
-make croissants
-make lots of sangria
-bake lots of bread (sourdough, foccaccia, whole wheat, etc.)
-canning (pickles, jams from freshly picked berries, maybe that we pick ourselves if there are any left the first week of september)
-make our own granola to go with our homemade yogurt
-make pasta (she has a pasta maker)
-make ice cream (and she has a ice cream maker)
so i have found a friend who is equally domestic and into eating as i am! this is a busy list; the goal is to do one a weekend. i'm really excited to live in a house again with friends, and not spanish parents, as great as they are. i have a lot of postcards left over that i was thinking i would make into a poster and get it laminated. and i have picked up some new art posters as well, so our house will be full of the usual maps and art that i love. maybe this year other people will bring wall decorations haha, because last semester i think i pretty much decorated the living room myself. but one can never have too many maps, i always say.
back to madrid though. other highlights of the week include going to the malaria exhibit at the national library (where you cannot actually use the library, as we found out), and going out to the wine bar in chueca. they have a really delicious vino rosado there. saturday, i went to the museo thyssen finally and i really liked it! it has a bit of everything, art from the 1600's to the present day, including a lot of picasso and gaugain and kandinksy. today i went to the flea market with jessica and bought a pair of fake ray bans wayfarers that are pretty cute, and then wandered around by myself because she went to go watch the bullfight that we could go to with the program but i didn't want to.
so this friday is the trip to copenhagen! it is looking like it will be my last trip unfortunately, but i'm so glad to be going! and since madrid has been so chilly, it won't even be like entering the cold white north because i am already living in it. i tried on all my spring dresses today in my room. i want to wear them so badly! warm up madrid! RAHHHH!

Semana Santa

Oh mannnnn I'm back from my ten day European escapade with Amanda and I am so tired! I have a feeling this post may get lengthy, so bear with me, although if you read this blog you are probably curious anyway.
Alors, from the beginning.. Got to the airport on time, despite the fact that Amanda's host cat had peed all over her jacket right before she left. We flew into Marseille, where we were abruptly confronted by a French speaking world. We had to take a bus from the airport into the city to the train station, and at the train station we tried to buy tickets at the machines but it didn't take our credit cards (no weird chip thing) and we didn't have 13 euros worth of coins for each of us, so we were a bit frazzled, and this girl maybe our age saw that we needed help, and got the train information for us and waited in line with us to buy our tickets, and even invited us to stay in her house if we didn't have a place to stay. So, we took a ghetto train to Arles. Once we got there, once again there were problems with the French thing, but we eventually figured out how to take the bus after I asked the woman who worked inside the station, using the sentence structure of a two year old. We got into the middle of town and couldn't figure out how to get to it, when I realized that all the signs that we had seen for the "auberge jeunesse" were for the youth hostel, and then it was easy peasy. The hostel was weird, there were only five other people staying there, and it was a bit like a strange combination of convent and summer camp. There was a big dining hall but the few of us that were there ate at one table, but it reminded me of Camp Huckins.
In Arles, we finally found the historic part of town (we were a little worried because our part of town was kind of run down and generic looking) and had a great day.



We started off with the best outdoor market I had ever seen. So much food everywhere! Urchins, fish, spices, honey, lavander, roasted chickens, cheese stands, everything! We walked by one stand where they literally fed us 6 different sauces on big pieces of baguettes, so I had to buy one. I bought Red Pesto that I thought was delicious. I was on a quest for lavander honey the whole time, and I bought one that came in a plastic jar which doesn't look as pretty but is good for traveling home. I'm saving it to bring home (present for the house mom and dad) but ohhhhh boy do I want to try it now. Spain is not big on honey, so in France I may have gone a little overboard. From the market, we explored the Roman ruins like the theater and the ampitheater, and randomly ran into some Skidmore girls who were studying abroard in Aix but were in Arles for the day with their program, so we walked around with them for a bit. Amanda and I had walked by a crepe place the night before and decided it would be good for lunch, and once we went in, it turned out that the tables outside were in the courtyard that Van Gogh painted!





Then, more ruins for the afternoon, and walking around. We took a nice path next to a little river and explored some less touristy areas. That night there was a nice girl from Seattle that was on vacation from teaching English near Lyons. Then.. we woke up and took the bus to Aix-En-Provence, which was a beautiful bus ride.

Then, Aix.. It was kind of a bust. I mean, the whole trip was great, so that's not saying much, but we got there on palm sunday, so the buses weren't running. But we didn't know that, and the schedule said the next one would be in two hours (HA!) so we tried to kill some time, and then went back to the bus station, waited for an hour, said "fuck this" and we walked about an hour to get to our hostel, wearing our suitcases on our backs, as was our custom the whole trip. The hostel was really nice once we found it, it was the splurge hotel, and we had a great room with a big bed and a strange little loft area, and the area around it was beautiful gardens. When we got back into real town, we had just missed a huge carnival, bummer. We saw some floats go by on their way out, and remnants of confetti everywhere. We explored all around and encounted a lot of half naked alcoholics talking to themselves. We saw a big procession outside for Palm Sunday, and the crowd all sang and walked to church like a parade; I had never seen anything like it. Dinner, more crepes. Delicious..

Bus to Nice! It was a wonderful sight to see the ocean when we arrived. Our hostel was crazy. It was rated the best hostel in France for 2008, and the rooms were nice and breakfast was wonderful and they had a bar with beers for 1 euro and overall it was pretty nice. There were tons of Americans and Australians, which made me miss home a bit, with all the English being spoken. We decided to get French haircuts while we were there, which was a bit of a hassle with the language thing. The weirdest thing is that they didn't get our hair wet first, they just sat us down and went at it! Amanda got a significant amount of hair cut off, but I played it rather safe. I have some rebellious little bangs that are kinda cute now if they dry right, but otherwise, same hair. The whole thing was a lot of miming and gestures and "no." They were cutting some other woman's hair and giving her a blunt cut with the little electric buzzer that they normally use for guy's hair cuts. Just kind of slashing away at the hair with it. We said "no" to that.

There wasn't much to see in Nice; we missed the Matisse museum because it was closed on Tuesdays, but we hung out on the beach and climbed the big castle hill and saw beautiful views of the ocean and the city.



I enjoyed the atmospshere in Nice, being back on the coast in my shoreline element. Luckily, the coast continued on our next stop.. We took the train from Nice, changed at the Italian border, and then had no idea how long the trip would take. We somehow must have taken the local train because there were literally 50 stops between the border and La Spezia. I figured about three hours, but five and a half hours later we got in to the station. I had the bus schedule for the town our hostel was in, and I knew that the last bus left at 8, and we got in at nine. So we arrived, not speaking ANY Italian and knowing that to walk the equivalent of a twenty minute bus ride in the pitch black up windy hills is not a good idea, and I was frantically trying to call the hostel but our phones weren't working.. But, in a moment of clarity we wandered into another hotel and asked them how to get there, and they called a taxi for us. 20 euros, yeeesh.

And then we entered Cinque Terre. There were two buses from the hostel into the last of the five towns, one at 7 in the morning, and one at 9. We took the one at 9 and got a nice early start to the day in the one that starts with an R. We took the easiest trail ever, that was paved with stones, and about 20 minutes walk, called the via dell'amore.





And we ate delicious gelato and I had gnocchi with pesto at this cafe on the beach in the last of the five towns. The food in Italy was heavenly. Gelato was a daily requirement.

Ah, getting tired of this.. So anyway, Cinque Terre was awesome. Florence was way touristy, and we didn't need to know any Italian to get around. We stayed on the same street my mom stayed on when she was there with Aunt Cathy, and she recommended the restaurant down the street. So we went, and it was awesome! The waiter was sooo friendly and nice and the food was great. I got vegetable tuscan bread soup and chicken with butter and sage. The waiter twisted our arms into getting the liter of wine, which we ended up not being able to finsh, but it was delicious. Our tiramisu was excellent, although we both had actually never tried it before anywhere else. We ended up staying for two and a half hours haha. The other waiter turned out to be a huge Texas/George Bush fan whose best friend is from Dallas and owns a cheese shop two blocks from Amanda's house. He showed us his Texas pins and then pulled a bunch of big Bush pins out from his pocket and proudly displayed them. He must have been the only pro-Bush Italian. We got into the city early enough to have a good day exploring. Most things were open even though it was Easter weekend, except for the climb to the top of the Duomo, which I was so disappointed about. I wish I had a guidebook for Florence, because I feel like we just did the two musuems and the Duomo and not much else, but I would have liked to have settled in more because I had always wanted to go. The statues in the Plaza where the fake David is are incredible! I don't know why more aren't as famous as the David. And, more gelato and delicious pasta and pizza all the time. I liked having to walk past the Duomo to get to anywhere from the hotel. And then on our way to the airport in Pisa, we were getting on the train, I heard someone calling my name and it ended up being my friend Dave from Skidmore and his mom! So we caught up on the train, they were going to Cinque Terre incidentally.

Then, we got on the plane to go to Valencia (because it was like 500 dollars cheaper to fly there and take a bus to Madrid, instead of flying into Madrid). About an hour in, the flight attendant asked for all the doctors on board to go to the back of the plane to help someone sick. Then twenty minutes later, we were told that we were making an emergency landing. I have no idea where we landed, some place called Albera or Vabera or something, either Italy or Spain, but not France.. I don't know. So we had to wait for the ambulance to come, and then for them to take the bags of the family off the plane, and then the flight attendants informed us that it was the rules of this airport that we all had to get off the plane and wait in the rain while they refueled the plane and got a new flight plan. Wonderful. At least they had some buses that we could stand in to get out of the rain, but we ended up being an hour and a half late getting in. There isn't much to say about Valencia, we were only there for about 16 hours. It seemed nice. Of course, after having encountered so many friendly helpful people in France and Italy, it was a shock when I went to ask a man what direction a plaza was and he replied in English "get away, leave me alone." Bienvenidos a España, indeed. So, bus back to Madrid and here I am. All in all, a great trip! I think Arles was my favorite. I noticed that I took progressively less pictures as the trip went on, haha, so I have the most from Arles.
here is a link to facebook pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2053062&id=12204355&saved#/album.php?aid=2053062&id=12204355

Viajar

It seems I am always starting a blog entry by describing how busy I have been since the last entry. A common theme of studying abroad anywhere, I suppose. Mom, Dad and Aunt Beth came to visit me this past weekend and we had a great time. Mom and Dad got here on Monday first, so we spent the day together celebrating birthdays and then they left me behind to go to Sevilla which sounded very nice. When they got back, Aunt Beth showed up and the visit really began. I think I was a better tour guide this time around, having practiced on Chris a few weeks ago, and knew what I was doing. I didn't make any mistakes like getting on the metro going the wrong way, or speaking Spanish to the waiter and he didn't understand me at all. So, that was good. Also, I got to stay in one of the nicest hotels in Madrid. My mom and I went to Lush and I bought a wonderful bath bomb and took a much needed bath in the hotel room. Aunt Beth and I shared a room, it was nice to stay with her! I was so glad she could come. We took a day trip to Segovia with a tour guide, and there ended up being a marathon so a lot of the streets were closed. Also it got SO COLD last week! It was literally the temperature it was back in February or January. I sent home a bunch of my winter clothes with them, but I made sure to keep some warm things because apparently you never know what the weather will be like. I just want to wear my sundresses. Sigh. So, Segovia was pretty cool, literally. I liked the castles, and the way they decorate the walls of their houses with intricate carved designs. I hadn't seen anything like that before. And, I went to the Prado for the fourth time and the Reina Sofia for the third, but I still have yet to go to the Thyssen. There has been no time! Once they left, I had to figure out my schedule because I am registering the day after I come back from Semana Santa. I only need four more classes to finish my major! I need some filler classes now, I'm looking at Mythology, either intro to Latin or Greek, and perhaps a history class about England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. I feel a bit like a freshman again, having to pick classes totally randomly.
Everything is booked for Semana Santa except our last night, in Valencia. I'm so excited! I should be packing now instead of writing, but, it seems pretty daunting. I'm trying to remember how to speak French. Turns out I just remember mostly the irregular verbs haha. Je suis, je fais, j'ai.. But I found a useful website that is perfect for brushing up on my rusty skills. I'm going to try to find a guide book in an English book store later today. AHHH it's going to be so neat! I'm a little scared of the Italian because at least in French if i don't know what the word means, I can say it out loud. But Italian.. yikes, i don't know how to pronounce things. I have been trying to remember how to say cinque terra but I think my mouth just doesn't move that way. Once I get back from vacation, I'll have like a month and a half left here. My birthday will be soon! Everything happens so quickly here for a country that takes two hours out of the day to rest.
Also, Topshop opens in New York today. Wooo!

Madrugada

Free time so new blog post!
I just had lunch with my host parents and my host mom's nephew. It was pretty good, although I mostly just listen and only speak when spoken to haha, and the nephew (can't remember his name! ahh!) called me out on it. i'm just shy, and i can't really jump into a conversation when I only understand 3/4 of the words. Although we did talk about driving across the United States, something that everyone present, myself included, wants to do. The nephew wants to visit Virginia and West Virginia, but I managed to convince him that he probably didn't really want to go to West Virginia. I don't know how to say "hicks" in spanish but hopefully i conveyed that meaning. We also talked about public transportation in Spain and America, and I couldn't really explain why it's normal for everyone to take the metro but not the bus in New York. Why is that, exactly?
So, Thursday is the day of Saint Joseph, which means, Spanish Father's Day! Because Joseph is the father of Jesus.. Which means- no school no work no nothing! Everything was closed, even the post offices. So instead of my usual three day weekend, I had a four day weekend. Needless to say I could have been a little more productive, but I went out and slept a lot and read a bunch and other stuff. We went to some interesting night places at least, explored and what not. There is a great Irish bar near my house that i went to on st. patrick's day. We had an exam the day after, so we just went for one guinness after class at six, when they were putting up the decorations for the big party that was to come in the evening. We went back there this weekend and I noticed they had hard cider so obviously i could not pass that up. Last night we went to a little bar that was 60's themed, and they had all these little toys in boxes displayed around the room, and they were projecting some movie from the 60's on a wall. I was watching it and I realized that it was set in Brighton. Pretty cool.
The most productive thing I have done this weekend is book my flights for Semana Santa, and the first two nights in Arles. Ay it is so hard to plan trips, especially if you don't want to spend a lot of money, and especially if you are going lots of different places. We have to book like five more hostels for the rest of the trip. The imagined iterinary is as follows: arrive in Marseille, take the train to Arles, stay two nights in Arles, go to Aix-En=Provence, stay one night there, go to Nice, spend two nights there, take the train into Italy, spend two nights in Cinque Terra, and then train to Florence and spend two nights there, and then fly to Valencia for cheap and spend one night there and then take a bus or a train back to Madrid. I'm hoping for a relaxing vacation, and that all the traveling won't tire me out. I can't wait though, provence is somewhere i've always wanted to go. instead, i have been to the same exact places in france two times. not that i am complaining by any means. but i'm glad to go to a new place! i love love france. I have been practicing what little french i remember, hopefully it will be functionary for our trip.
Mom and Dad are coming tomorrow! Of course, they get to go to Sevilla and leave me in Madrid, but they come back this weekend and Aunt Beth is coming too! I am looking forward to it.
And, I leave you with the beauty of Extremadura.

Atisbo

I have been reading all day for hours straight, so I have decided to take a recreational break until dinner, which should be soon. Since i don't feel like reading to pass some free time, I chose to write. I have a lot of George Orwell to read for Tuesday, but not 1984 or Animal Farm things. We are reading his non-fiction travel account of Northern England and his descriptions of mining country. It's pretty intense but reads quickly because it's pretty interesting. I knew mining was horrible and whatnot, but his descriptions go way into detail and it sounds like impossibily difficult work. Once the miners go down the shaft, they had to basically fold themselves in half and squat-walk for three miles in the heat to even get to the place where they had to mine the coal. Apparently George Orwell was 6'2" and he said it was next to impossible for him to even go a mile, and then he was sore for a week after.

I had a lovely excellent fun week with Chris last week. I almost felt like I was on vacation myself in some other city; it was so weird to live in the same city but in a different place. Our hostel was in Sol, which is the middle of the city and close to virtually everything that is worth seeing, so we were able to walk everywhere and explore more in-depth than I had been able to previously. We did some touristy things like the Palacio Real and the Prado. The Palacio Real was really beautiful, and we went on a Tuesday afternoon and there were five other people in the whole palace! It was great! I think Versailles still is the end all royal palace, but this one comes close in my opinion. It was good to visit the Prado without school, because then we could see the paintings that we actually want to see instead of spending two hours just looking at Velazquez and Goya (not that they are bad to look at, but i have seen them all, twice). Also it was just generally a nice experience to feel like a tourist in my own "home." I don't usually go out to eat a lot, but that was the only option this week so I was excited to go eat Mexican food and Thai and other ethnic things. After walking around for hours trying to decide on tapas restaurants, I have decided that tapas really are not my favorite thing. They are basically all the same, and are all kinda mediocre. I like tortilla española, and patatas bravas, but really the rest are all kind of meh. This was an unfortunate conclusion because I still have two and a half months of living in tapas country. But like I said, I don't go out to eat much. We did have pretty good tostas, which are basically little meals on toast, that we shared like tapas.

Things have been pretty busy for me, Barcelona, busy week at school, Extremadura, Chris.. Then this week with all this reading for Tuesday, and I'm re-taking my grammar test tomorrow, and then we have an art history test on Wednesday.. But after Wednesday I think i finally should have some time to do nothing. Friday is Father's Day here and it is a really big deal and they don't have work that day, or the day before. I could travel, but I really need a restful weekend. Tonight I think I'm booking my spring break plans: Provence and Italy. I have always wanted to go to both of those places, I hope that we are able to plan it!

Also, David Sedaris is coming to Skidmore this month. AHHHHHHHHHHH WTF WHY DOES HE COME WHEN I AM IN SPAIN I AM SO UPSET

Volver

This blog is kind of like all the diaries I have started and eventually the entries taper off.. But I have been busy! I went to Barcelona last weekend and this weekend I just got back from a province called Extremadura, and they both were great trips. I had been to Barcelona before when I was in London, but it is definitely a city I don't mind going to more than once. I went with Amanda and Jessica and we stayed in a really cool hostel in the middle of the city and we woke up each morning and looked in the guide book and picked what we wanted to do, and then did everything. It was such an efficient and enjoyable trip for that reason; we weren't frantically wandering around trying to stumble upon things. The best part of Barcelona: The Bagel Shop. When we saw that in the guidebook we all freaked out. The bagels were really good and we actually went there twice (tried to go three times in total haha) and it was good to have familiar food. And we did all the sights, Sagrada Familia, beach, Park Güell, La Rambla, etc.. Amanda had a friend from Barcelona that we met up with and practiced spanish, and jessica had a friend from high school that was studying there too so we had a social weekend one might say.. Anyway, Barcelona was good.
Extremadura is in the south and goes up to the Portugal border. It's basically beautiful farm country. For me, the highlight was Saturday. It was gorgeous warm sunny weather and we went to this nature preserve in the middle of nowhere and hiked around and had a lovely lovely time, and then we went to another city and got to see really extensive Roman ruins that were really super cool. It was the city that the main character from Gladiator is from in the movie. And then at night we went to Guadalupe and stayed in a monastery, that was really neat.
Perhaps i will elaborate a bit more later, but right now I am exhausted and cannot write anymore.
Chris arrives tomorrow! Just in time for the real spring weather too, it's supposed to be 70 this week!

Botellón

I went out thursday night, friday night and saturday night this week. I am SO TIRED! It's getting easier to stay out really late like 5, but i don't think i'm up to staying out until the metro starts running again at 6. although when i write that it really only is one more hour, but i usually am ready to leave before five and it just takes a while to get home unfortunately. luckily- i have figured out the night bus system, so i feel very accomplished. my friend and i are one stop apart so we take it together.

this weekend it is carnival, which is some sort of halloween/mardi gras hybrid. we had plans to go drink a bottle of wine in a cute café we found during the day, but we ran into a friend at the metro station and she easily pressured us into coming with her. first, we went to the gay district, Chueca, and we hung out in the big plaza there and everyone was botellón-ing. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botell%C3%B3n) It was insane to see so many awesome costumes. because we were in the gay barrio there were tons of drag queens dressed like belle from beauty and the beast or marie antoinette or bert and ernie or just vampy women. i noticed that it is less like halloween in america because the girls actually wear interesting costumes instead of wearing no clothes and being slutty. they were actually wearing lots of clothes surprisingly.

we went to a party at these spanish kids' apartment after and i was one of the few without costumes (no time to go costume shopping really). i was really glad that we went to it because it is really uncommon for the spanish to have house parties. in spanish culture, no one really hangs out at each other's houses, so you always have to go out somewhere to meet up and hang out, which is disappointing because there have been plenty of times when i wish that i could just watch a movie with friends and stay in together but this is not an option. our spanish parents would think it was so so bizarre if we did that. and usually kids live with their parents until they are around 30. so, this party was kind of a once in a spanish lifetime experience haha. the year-long kids invited us because they are friends with the spanish guys, so we met a bunch of spanish people and other international kids our age. i was not planning on staying out late because the night before i got home after five, but somehow it happened again. thus, i am sleepy.

saturday night amanda and jess and i found a new barrio and went to a pretty fun discoteca although the drinks were way overpriced. we pretended to be from different countries every time someone asked us were we were from. we easily convinced a bunch of people we were from finland haha. we run into all kinds of people from everywhere when we go out, it's pretty entertaining to hear spanish that is just as bad as ours.

friday amanda and i started our watercolor class at the art studio. we had gotten our supplies on wednesday, which basically entailed us giving the list of supplies to the person who worked at the art store and having them find everything. we had no clue what most of the words on the list meant, and every store would say "oh we don't have that you have to go to a different store" so we had to go to three stores in all to get about seven things. ridiculous. so, we went on friday and manuel the teacher looked at all of our stuff that we had gotten and was like "what is this? i have no idea what this is! why did you get this?" and we were like "we don't either! we just showed the list and that's what they gave us!" then, he started explaining what we were supposed to do to prep our piece of paper. the whole thing was so funny. he would tell us exactly what to do, but we didn't understand a lot of the words so we just started doing something and he would say "no! what are you doing?" we were so clueless about everything. if i had known how to do anything with watercolors before that would have been helpful, but we are learning how to do it from the beginning in spanish we only half understand, so to me it was hilarious. i could not stop laughing because i had no clue what he was telling us to do. but eventually we got it and started to copy/paint this picture of a lighthouse on a beach. FOUR HOURS LATER we had to leave, but mine is almost done. it's comical how bad we are at art, but it was really fun at the same time. my friend jessica is at the same studio doing etching or engraving or something so it's nice to have friends with me. usually we won't have to do four hours at once, we can break it up throughout the week to make four.

photo of the day: picnic

Zumo

So i did indeed go back to the park and had a lovely picnic with some buds. We had a feast of bread, some unidentified cheese, olives, beer, and boxed sangria that was horrible. to my surprise i tried an olive and it was actually very tasty. normally i hate olives, but these olives tasted really different. a pity i don't remember the name of them. We spent several hours in the park (again) and then went to have a late afternoon, aka six-thirty, snack of patatas bravas and ice cream. patatas bravas is a tapa, basically potatoes with a spicy kind of tomato sauce on top. in spain, potatoes are called patatas, not papas like in latin america. at dinner, we watched this show about madrid people in other countries and this show was about boston. in the middle of watching, some madrileño was showing the show his meat shop, and my host mom asked me if i had tried this thing that i don't remember the word for. i said not that i knew of, she said it's really tasty but that if she told me what it was i would never want to try it. then she burst out into a hysterical laughing fit. from what i gather it is some strange animal part mixed with blood or something. i reaaaaaally wish i remembered the word haha.
Monday was fairly uneventful. I didn't have class until 5:30 so i hung around at home reading and doing a bit of homework. I'm reading The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon and i have only have about 100 pages left! It's a murder dectective mystery that takes place in an imaginary Jewish settlement in Sitka, Alaska. as i started reading it, i thought to myself, i don't remember all those jewish places everywhere when i was in sitka... so i looked it up and it turns out that Sitka was one of the places they wanted to make kind of a jewish commonwealth after the war but instead Israel was chosen. But Chabon chose to set his novel as if it had actually been Sitka. Anyway, it's a really interesting book, very well written. Then after I had grammar class, we went to go buy tickets to see Carmen. It seems like they have re-invented it into some kind of flamenco-esque thing instead of the traditional opera. We are going the first week of March, because it's all sold out until then.
Today- a full day at the university! On a whim, I went with my friends to check out a new class called Migration and Human Interconectedness under the Anthropology department, and i really liked it! the teacher was SO EXCITED that there were so many Erasmus kids and United States kids in it, to get our different views. It seems like perhaps a lot of outside work, but all pretty do-able. he speaks pretty clearly and slowly because he said when he was in the united states everyone would talk fast and he didn't know what they were saying, so he knows what we're going through. Then, i had my second class of the day, Social Transformations in 20th century British Writing. I like this class a lot. The teacher spent today explaining Modernism, and just lectured, but next week we are starting to discuss texts so it will be more exciting. Mrs. Dalloway is first up on the list, which i have read, but in a completely different setting, and i liked it anyway so i don't mind reading it again. After class, my two friends i'm taking the class with and i went to the international bookstore to buy Mrs. Dalloway, and amanda and i ended up spending about an hour and a half in there. it was incredible! they had so so much paul auster and murakami and really obscure authors that you perhaps wouldn't even find in american bookstores! i found a collection of short stories edited by Jeffrey Eugenides called "My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead," and it's a collection of great love stories from chekhov to munro. i am excited about reading it. they also had a really great section about spain; i feel like i should return and buy a book about history or culture here. I really don't know that much about Spanish culture. I understand the civil war and franco and stuff, but that's just scratching the surface. perhaps i will gain some insight from my migration class about spanish culture? one can hope.
tomorrow's goal: put more money on phone and buy painting supplies/perhaps paint.

Preciosa

Highlight of the last few days: Parque Retiro! I finally went yesterday for the first time and it was such a gorgeous day- 60 and sunny! of course, the Spaniards were still pretty bundled up but my New England self was loving that i could just wear a t-shirt (also pants). I went with some friends and we wandered around for a few hours, just looking at all the fountains and people. we stumbled upon this palacio cristal that had a small exhibit from the Reina Sofia museum that was pretty cool. It is a lot different than Central Park in that it is not as green and there are no rocks, but perhaps that is because it is february and the possibility that things will get green is pretty likely. in the mean time, i am returning there today to have a picnic! hopefully it will be the site of many many picnics in the future as well.



after the park, we went to see a movie that we thought looked interesting based solely on the posters in the metro to cross another cultural activity off the list for the month. Turned out to be about this girl who gets kidnapped and raped and then tells her best friend who is a boy, and then they start dating and he rapes her and abuses her also. So far, out of two plays and two spanish movies i have seen, there has been at least one graphic (as in, more than would be shown in the usa but less than a porn obviously) sex scene, and two rape scenes. I don't know if it's just the ones we have been choosing, or if this is how spanish things work. My host mom was like "why do they make you see spanish movies? they're awful!" so far i agree...
we also had to go to this art fair exposition thing on friday. I had no clue what it was, but we got out of the metro and there was this huge building in front of us, which apparently is the potential spot for the olympics if madrid hosts them. so we bought our tickets (21 euros jeez!) and it turned out to be this huge huge art gallery show basically. it was in a bunch of super big rooms that were sectioned off into little areas for each gallery. it was really neat. this is a bus that looks like it is made out of bones.



then at night on friday, we went to the moncloa barrio and went to this bar that was decorated like a cave inside. when you order the drink of the house- "panther's milk" they take a big goblet the size of my head and milk starts coming out of the ceiling while the bartender pours a lot of various alcohol in there, and tops it with cinnamon. it was a strange drink. then we went to club scruffy, which was appropriately named. while waiting in line for the bathroom, my friend and i met this very intense drunk spanish girl who was SO EXCITED that we were american and invited us to dance with her and her friends. she was pretty hilarious. our blatant american accent gives us away, even when we are speaking in spanish they know we are not from around here. because i am blonde, i automatically get pegged for being from the united states. i myself am getting better at distinguishing americans in madrid. you can tell because of their footwear- flats without socks, flip flops, sandals, running sneakers.. or like yesterday if they were wearing a t-shirt without a jacket.. or simply because they look like a natural blonde. i like to play the game of guessing if someone is american on the metro and usually when they start talking i am right. you can tell if someone is actually spanish if they are wearing winter clothes, or if they are hardcore making out with someone. there is no concept of or word for p.d.a. here. i would say that because yesterday was valentines day, there were more couples making out everywhere, but that is not true. every day is like valentines day if you are spanish.

Cacahuetes

Ah, miercoles. I don't know how to say hump day in Spanish but i certainly welcome its arrival.
We had a wonderful intercultural therapist woman come in and do a seminar with us yesterday about integrating into Spanish culture and understanding the differences and why they exist. For example, you aren't supposed to have bare feet at home, because Spanish people think you will get sick if your feet get cold or something. Also, they think feet are unseemly. I looked down at my feet in tiny flats without socks realizing that it is hard to adapt to a different culture. Also, Spanish people have absolutely no problem with not saying "Excuse me" when they barrel past you and knock into you, but they insist that you always say hello to them when you enter a store or something. Also, they stand really close to each other when speaking, relative to American standards. The woman was really helpful with making us realize that we can't just instantly adapt and be able to speak the language. She mentioned this theory by some linguist that i forget the name of, but his theory was that to acquire a language the formula has to be I + 1. As in, to learn a language, the input needs to be what you know, plus a little bit. Most of the time it feels like I + 23409834987569875, but i am supposed to feel okay that i don't understand much because it's way above +1. that put my mind at ease a little, although it still is really frustrating to not understand what is going on.
After class yesterday, I went with three friends back to the same theater I saw the other play in Lavapiés to see one about crazy women in an insane asylum during the civil war. This one i didn't like as much as the first, it was longer and just didn't hold my interest as much. Then, we got out and it was 11:30 so we decided to search for dinner and stumbled upon an Indian restaurant and happily went in. Not that I don't like Spanish food, but it can get a little bland, and Indian food feels more familiar to me. It was a good meal.
Today, I went to check out the art studio where amanda and i are going to take watercolor painting class. it seems really low-key; there are no scheduled classes, you just come in with your stuff and do work there, and the instructor will sign a piece of paper saying that you did one hour or whatever. so i think i'm going to do two hours a week of that to equal one skidmore credit, which i don't really need anyway. then, instead of going to buy our supplies, we went topshopping. a weakness indeed. the topshop here is no where near as big as they are in london, but i love it still.
also, bananas are really really good here. they have tons more flavor and the texture is a little more dense. they call them "platanos." i have noticed this phenomenon in spanish language, where there is kind of a false cognate. like, what would they call plantains? or, shrimp are called "langouistinos" but what about a langoustine? or clementines are called mandarinos, but what about a mandarin orange? these things i wonder about.
anyway, i have a long day of testing out potential classes tomorrow at the university and am not looking forward to it. i thought i was going to have to go today but i got all ready (reluctantly) and realized that it ended the same time my class at skidmore center started and the two are about 30 minutes apart, so i couldn't take that class. i was so glad to not have to go to school by myself for the first time. tomorrow my english lit buddy and i are going to a bunch together so i'm happy i won't get lost on my own.

and now for something completely different

BLINK 182 IS REUNITING!!!!! oh happy day.




as cool as this is, their last album kinda sucked. i'm hopeful that the new one will be better and like the older ones.

i'm still holding out for the talking heads reunion. as long as all of them are alive, there is always a chance.

Pincelada

So, much has occurred since last time. So much that my brain cannot remember all of it. We went back to the Prado again, this time with my Civilization and Art class at the Skid center. We had learned about a bunch of post-impressionist Spanish painters in class and were going to see them, but they were in the process of moving them, so we had to see the Velazquez and Goya again and hear the same explanations. But, then we got to see the crazy Francis Bacon exhibit. Here is an example of his work:


apparently his deal was to capture the spirit of man without god, as in, animalistic. everyone in the paintings were either screaming or bearing their teeth and had crazy mouths. i was not sure how i felt about it.
And thennnnnn.. Thursday night we went out for real! We found this cool German bar that gave us "VIP" cards that apparently do absolutely nothing, and hung out there for a bit while the night was still young (i.e. until one in the morning hah) and then we to our first discoteca! They play a lot of american music here, so obviously much dancing was done to "all the single ladies." It was nice, because on friday we didn't have to be anywhere until one in the afternoon....
which was the Reina Sofia museum! The reina sofia has most of the modern art in Madrid, like Picasso and Dali. I GOT TO SEE GUERNICA IN REAL LIFE AND IT WAS SO SO AWESOME!!!!! It's so huge and you can see things you can't really see in a picture, like the bird in the background. And everything looks smoother or something, it's hard to describe.


Then, we had to go back to school to have yet another information meeting about university classes, which we had already heard about a million times, so my friend and I went to the movies instead. We picked out this movie that we thought would be about modern day Germany and be fun and interesting, called "the wave." then it started and we were like "oh shit this is actually IN german, with spanish subtitles!!" and then as it progressed we were like "oh shit this is actually about neo-fascism!!" and there is a bloody school shooting at the end. Needless to say, this is what happens when you cannot understand the synopsis. but i surprised myself with how much i could understand of the movie, which was positive.
Luego, on Saturday, we went to the this royal monastery palace thing called El Escorial. It is about an hour north of Madrid in the mountains, so it was really really cold. And we didn't know it would be so cold, so we were all freezing. It snowed and it was really windy and the castle had zero heat inside. Also, in terms of royal castles, Versailles is totally cooler. This one was okaayyyyy but.. meh. Kind of bland.


Which leads me up to today, which was a great day. We went to El Rastro which is kind of like the Portobello Market of Madrid, except a lot bigger. We were pretty overwhelmed with how big it was and how many people but i liked it a lot and plan to return. it's notorious for pickpockets, so i went without a purse and was totally fine. Then we met up with some others and went to see one of the movies that is on our cultural activities list, called "dieta mediterranea," which turned out to be one of the strangest movies i have seen. This is this woman who is in love with two men, and marries one but is still in love with the one, and they end up just becoming a threesome and having sex all the time and running a restaurant together and sleeping together and it was just bizarre. it would never be a movie in america haha.
Then we had chocolate caliente and churros at the famous place to eat them and they were delicious!



Classes start at the university this week.. ayyyyyy i don't want them to.

Charmartin

Most recent strange encounter: Spanish kids love to mix red wine with coca-cola. Whaaaaat? We had a party to meet our Spanish pen-pals from the university yesterday night and it was a little nervewracking to meet so many people all at once. I met my penpal that wrote back to me, and she was super nice. She studies English literature too! Although she is in her first year, so I said maybe I could help her, being that, you know, English is my first language. They all said our Spanish was much better than their English, although, they could be liars. Mentirosos. We went out last night for our first Madrid friday. It was pretty fun, but we're still figuring out the good places to go and also it was a little scary not knowing how we would get home because the metros close at 1:30. So a bunch of us actually left before the metro closed. The nice thing about London was that we all lived in one place. In Madrid we are scattered all over the city. This means, we cannot get ready to go out together and no one can help me pick out my clothes. Also, it means we kind of have to have a spot in mind to go so everyone can meet up. Also, we have to go home alone. I took the metro with my friend because we overlap for most of the way. Then when i stood up after she left, these boys starting talking to me in english. I was like "Jesus, is it that obvious that I'm an American?" and they said "Sí." Sigh.. These nice older Spanish helped point me in the right direction of my street and I got home fine. Actually, my host parents were just going to sleep at 2 a.m. So, the cool Spanish kids probably stay out much much later haha.
Oh oh also, the Prado was awesome.
Another strange encounter: we went out as a large group last night, and split up into two groups for people who wanted to eat a dinner and those that had already eaten and just wanted small tapas. Embarassingly enough we ended up at a place that served hamburgers, which the waiter thought was pretty funny. Americans eating cheeseburgers in Madrid. However- the hamburgesas were actually ham. It was the strangest thing.
Anyway, I think I'm going to explore the area where I live. Or keep chilling in my pajamas in the house. Either one.

Sellos

My host family thinks I hate all of their food because I eat so slowly, I have to convince them that I do it all the time. I don't think they believe me.
Also, their bananas are turning brown and they mentioned that, so I tried to explain banana bread to them and between my Spanish and their culture I don't think they understood at all. However, they do enjoy Petit Ecolier cookies and plan to buy them next week, which is good with me.
Today on my way home from school I didn't use a map once! And I had intense problems with unlocking the apartment door the first day and the second day, so yesterday they made me practice opening their door like ten times. So, today, no problems! I feel a little more confident speaking, although when the bus driver today tried to explain something to me when my ticket wouldn't work (because it was a little ripped, and it just needs to be punched instead) he told me "tu no me entiendes" with a little too much annoyance for my liking. I was like, so true buddy, so true.. Also whenever I talk at dinner, Antonio has to ask Luisa what I said. That doesn't make me feel so confident haha.
We went on a tour of the Autonoma university today, and i got put in the art history group even though I don't think i'm going to actually take any, anymore. I'm taking Health and Disease, and some English class. Ayy I didn't want to take English while I was in Spain, but it looks like it will be the difference between writing a thesis and taking two lit classes at the same time, or just one lit class per semester. With a thesis of 40-80 pages I tihnk i will need all the free time I can get.
Tomorrow- El Prado! I'm so so excited.


I figured out how to do pictures, albeit it takes forever. So, a few:

This is an orange tree in the middle of a cloister in the big cathedral, raining slightly, looks very pretty.


And swords?


This is an orange tree in the middle of a cloister in the big cathedral, raining slightly, looks very pretty.
Toledo is medieval, so I guess that means they need to have knight armor everywhere?



And to represent the home front, Harley.

I am finally in Madrid! This is my second day here, first full day. It feels so nice to be settled in with my family. All I want now is for classes to start and life to get as normal as it can be. My host family, Luisa and Antonio, are really friendly and nice. They're in their fifties I think. I'm trying to speak as much as I can at the moment, so far I've only gotten a few "no entiendo"s from them. I have my own room and bathroom which is really nice, as well as wireless, or as they call it wi-fi (pronounced wee-fee haha).
This is kind of my first time to relax since I've left America. The program has us as busy as possible, or perhaps more than possible in my opinion. We got to Madrid around 10, took a bus to the Skidmore center and then had fifteen minutes to pack a bag to go to Toledo. Once we got to Toledo we basically immediently started orientation. It is really really difficult to pay attention to someone when they are speaking Spanish for two hours straight. If you zone out for even a second it's hard to pick the topic up again. Like, if they say a word I don't know then I wonder what it means and by that time I've already missed something. It was a little scary to have all of our crucial information given to us in Spanish, because I think I only understood half of what was said. Toledo was really beautiful though. It is this medieval city with tiny narrow streets that cars nonetheless drive fast on. I was worried my feet would get run over a few times. We went to a bunch of touristy places, cathedral and a museum with lots of El Greco (but not View from Toledo, alas). There was a random Bosch painting in my hotel room. Zelie and I got put together in the hotel which was nice. The program got a bunch of profesores from the University to come and give us a preview of their classes, which is I guess kind of good, although it sucks because some of them are really boring but they are all an hour long. The geography one we had today was the worst one.
Madrid gives me a strange feeling. I feel like the city is really easy to navigate; I walked home from the Center today. At the same time, the language thing makes it really really foreign. It is really tiring to always have my brain on for the Spanish. It's really frustating to have to think about how to say something every time I want to speak, but hopefully that will go away with time. My host mother already said my Spanish was better than yesterday, although I find that hard to believe.
Anyway, I can't figure out pictures yet, but the one on the top is from Toledo. Hay más on Facebook (sorry Mom). I'll figure it out later.

Frigorífico!

I have a little under two weeks left before I leave- yikes! I've been using Rosetta Stone to practice and it's been helping a lot, even just with making me feel comfortable with my language abilities. Also, the vocab is really useful. I have been learning a lot of good words like kitchen appliances, cutlery, every-day verbs, and the like. There was a whole lesson just to teach me the word for bandage (tirita) which I thought was kind of funny. And my new favorite word- frigorífico. It sounds like an adjective like "magnifico" or something but it just means refrigerator. It makes keeping perishables from going bad much more exiting. I'll put that left-over chorizo in the frigorífico! ¡Excelente! Lavavajiillas is another fun one.
I got a guidebook for the whole country of Spain for Christmas from my aunt and uncle- I'm going to go through that later. In addition to the trips we are taking with Skidmore around Spain I am really hoping to explore the country more. When I was in London I only went to Barcelona and Scotland, and stayed the rest of the time in the city. Hopefully I'll get to do more travelling this time around! For our break (Holy Week) we have ten days off to go exploring- a really good opportunity to go somewhere a bit farther perhaps.
In other news, I got my mom a Spanish cookbook for Christmas, and I have read it through. I am really excited to eat. A lot. This blog may quickly become a food blog once I get there.