Whirlwind

 Last week…I don’t really even remember what happened last week.  I think mostly just school.  On Friday my program had a trip to Madrid.  I was really excited to go because everything was paid for and planned out already, so I was thinking it was going to be like a mini vacation.  The truth is, it was my least favorite trip so far.  The weather was really bad, so that didn’t help at all.  Madrid is really big, which I don’t like, and all of the Spanish cities are kind of starting to look the same.  I also didn’t really get a chance to do a whole lot.  I wanted to see the Guernica while I was there but that didn’t end up working out.  But I did get to see inside the palace, which was really pretty, old, and interesting to see, but the tour was a little boring.  I also got to go to The Prado and see some of the paintings I learned about from Ms. Huso.  It was pretty cool to see in person, things that I read about in a Spanish IV book.  It made it all seem a little more real.  My favorites were El 3 de Mayo by Goya and Las Meninas by Velazquez.  While in Madrid I also got to experience my first Spanish play, La Fuga.  It was pretty interesting and funny because of the actions of the characters, but they talked so fast!!  I was able to understand the plot of the play, but it was kind of frustrating because when something funny happened, everyone would be laughing in the audience and we were sitting there wondering what was going on.  It was a great experience though, and the play seemed like it would be pretty good!

 On the way to Madrid we made a pit stop in Toledo.  I enjoyed Toledo more than Madrid.  We had a tour guide take us around the city and tell us a little about the history.  When we say “Holey Toledo!” it comes from Toledo, Spain, because it has 80 churches!!  And trust me, we saw at least 15 on our hour long tour.  In Toledo we also got to ride an 8 million dollar escalator that is in the side of the mountain, so people can get from the bottom of the city to the top!  It was amazing!!  Very cool!  We ended our trip in Toledo, with a trip to a sword factory!  Toledo is known for its stainless steel swords and knives.  That was pretty cool, and I got to whole a sword, so what’s not to like about that! J 

So I think at the beginning of this trip, I kind of started to hit the “this isn’t as fun as it used to be stage”.  It’s not that I don’t like it anymore or am not having fun anymore, but I’m just starting to miss the luxuries of home.  I miss being able to take a hot shower for as long as I want.  I miss knowing exactly what to do when I walk into a restaurant.  I miss being able to understand everything that people say to me, instead of trying to use context clues.  I’m just getting a little frustrated, but this week helped because I had visitors!  Kyle and his family came over for the week to experience a little Spanish Culture. They came at the right time because I think now that I had a little taste of home that I have a second wind to keep exploring and learning new things. I have midterms the next two weeks. :/  The only one I’m really nervous for is my Literature one.  That’s Monday so I should get studying. The next two weekends I have trips planned already and then it will be Spring Break.  These next two months are going to fly by!  

Fun Facts from across the world

     Nothing really new or exciting happened this week, but I did forget a few things about my recent trip to Gibraltar/Malaga.  Did you know that Gibraltar is the home of Miss World 2009??  Me either!!  When we crossed the border the first thing we saw was a big poster of Miss World 2009.  Also, in Malaga we also went to a Picasso Museum.  Malaga is where Picasso was born, so of course we had to stop and see some art.  It was pretty neat.  We got to see some original Picasso artwork and make our own (pretty funny) interpretations. Plus side to this visit, I can use some of the things I saw for a paper for my history of art class.  

     This week's Granada Seminar was over olive oil.  We learned how they make olive oil and how to tell how "good" the oil is by reading the labels.  While in class this was fairly interesting.  Then over the weekend we went to an olive oil museum.  The way it seemed to me, was that at the museum we would actually see them making olive oil and have them go through parts of the process for us.  I even thought we were going to be able to have a olive oil tasting. (When you taste olive oil you put it in your mouth, swish it around, and then spit is out. Yuck.) However, once we got to the museum, I quickly realized that it was no longer a working olive oil factory.  It was really a museum.  So we got to walk around and here how they make it, but nothing really very exciting at all.  It was kind of disappointing, but there is always room for fun.  My friend and I ended up taking some good pictures there, and it was really pretty, because it was in a town up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

  Now for my favorite story of the week.  I bought some playing cards last week because they would come in handy on trips, and I wanted to see what a Spanish deck of cards would look like.  I got them out this week to play solitaire and I realize that there are not enough cards.  I thought that maybe I just dealt out the cards wrong, so I tried again (3 more times).  Each time with the same result, not enough cards.  So I end up counting them and there are only 48 cards!!  I didn't know if I bought a bad deck or a special deck or if all Spanish decks are like this so I decided to do some research.  Turns out my deck was perfectly fine.  Here's the history of a Spanish Deck of Cards (Baraja):

  ~Usually made up of 40 cards (1-7,10-12) 10-12 are picture cards kind of like our Jack, Queen, and King

  ~ Sometimes the 8 and 9's are added to make 48 cards 

  ~Jokers (Comodines) are rarely used which makes a 50 card deck. ( I have this kind)

  ~There are four suites: Clubs (bastos- they look like chicken legs), Gold coins (oros), Cups (copas), and Swords (espadas)

  ~The suites represent the social classes of the Middle Ages

  ~Coins: Merchants

    Clubs: Peasants

    Cups: Church

    Swords: Military

  ~10 is called a sota and represents a prince. 11 is called caballo and represents a knight. 12 is called rey which is the king.

I then tried to see if there was a special Solitaire game, but I didn't really see anything that looked too promising or that I wanted to try to learn right then.  So now I have this very nice deck of Spanish Cards that I don't really know how to use.  I learned a lot though! :)

Carnaval en Malaga

After Gibraltar we went to Malaga before going back home.  We didn't really have any plan once we got to Malaga except to see some of the city and relax.  We were thinking about even going to the beach to just chill for the day.  However our "plans" changed because when we got to Malaga we found out that it was Carnaval.  Carnaval is like a party/celebration that a lot of cities in Spain have.  While we were in Malaga it just turned out to be their week of Carnaval.  So there were a lot of music groups just hanging out in the streets.  Everyone was dressed up in costumes, like it was Halloween!  There was a parade Sunday night, so we went to that.  It was a lot of fun!!  All of the floats and people in the parade threw out confetti and there was music!  It was great!  I decided that confetti is a lot more fun than candy.  I'm really glad that it was Carnaval when we went, because it was a lot of fun!

Malaga Carnaval

Spongebob cast in the Parade!

  The next day, we just hung out in some parks and plazas and people watched.  It was our relaxing day.  We listened to a few more music groups that were playing, and we went to an interactive music museum.  That was pretty cool.  We got to play on the drums and keyboards, and learned about some music history.  It seemed like our whole trip had a music theme, starting with the karaoke bar and ending with the music museum.  It was a really nice and relaxing weekend trip! :)

The Rock and Los Monos (Monkeys)

  This past weekend we had a four day weekend because of Dia de Adalusia.  So some friends of mine and I decided to take a trip to Gibraltar and then on the way home stop in Malaga, Spain for a few days.  I didn't really know much about Gibraltar before I went except that there were monkeys there so I decided to check it out.
  Apparently there must have been some sort of force attracting me to birds this past week.  (Update on our bird...it died...three days after we got it.  It was very sad and our Senora seemed heartbroken.  Unfortunately, it never got to sing.)  On the five our bus ride to La Linea (the town in Spain right next to the Gibraltar border, where we were staying at) there was a guy sitting in front of me, who was traveling with his pet bird.  A bird on a bus is not a good combination.  First of all, it smelled like bird.  Secondly, there may be a 18-20ish year old man who likes to provoke the bird.  The bird would whistle and then the man would whistle.  For three hours!! At first it was very entertaining, but after awhile it got a little old.

The Rock of Gibralter

  We got to the bus station in La Linea around 9pm on Friday.  We have the address of our hotel, but we don't have directions so we ask a girl near us if she knew where it was.  Her response:  Andando o en coche? (Walking or by car?)  We say walking and she says: "Ay, muy lejos!" (Very far!)  She then just tells us to take the cab by us.  We don't want to pay for a cab so we just started walking.  We then decide we have no idea where we are going to we go back to ask the cab driver for directions and to see if it really is that far.  His response: Andando o en coche?  We say walking.  So he gives us directions ( turn right at the next street, walk till the end of the street, turn left and then turn left at the second street)  and says that it should take like 2-3 minutes.  So we walk...to the end of the street (it's been like 8 minutes by now) and turn left.  We're in like the residential area of town.  Probably no right.  So we ask an older lady who was taking out her trash, but she didn't have her glasses on so she couldn't see, so she asks a man working on his car.  His response: Andando o en coche?  Really?!  We have large backpacks on and are carrying other bags.  Of course we're walking....we say walking and he goes: muy lejos!  And gives us directions back to almost where we started.  So we walk.  We end up walking by a police station so we as the lady sitting in there, she says: "Andando o en coche?  Again, walking, but this time the directions seemed like we were close.  Now we're by a take out pizza place and a man is leaving so we ask him just to make sure.  He tells us to go down two more streets and turn right.  So we walk, but about a minute later a women is getting out of her car, coming towards us like she wants directions.  We don't even know where we're going!  It turns out she was the wife of the guy at the pizza place and he gave us wrong directions.  So we end up getting to our hotel finally after about an 1 1/2 of walking, when really...our hotel is literally 2 minutes away from the bus station!  It was an eventful night.

  Saturday we walk across the border to Gib, it's like five minutes away from our hotel.  There is barely any security, and you literally just walk right across.  You even after to walk across the Gibralter runway to get into town.  Pretty cool!  We ended up taking a taxi tour of the rock.  We got to go into a cave that was used for a emergency hospital during WWII and we went into a tunnel.  We also got to see monkeys!!!  Not only did we see them, but they sat on our shoulders and heads!  Our cab driver has names for them all and know which was a nice or not, so he just picked them up and put them on us.  I had one on my shoulder and all of a sudden a not as nice monkey(Richard) jumps off the roof of our cab and onto my head!!  It was terrifying!  I was done with monkeys on me after that. :)

Me and the Monkeys

Phone booth fun!

 Then we had good ole fish n chips in little England at Roy's.  It was pretty good.  After lunch we went to a glass blowing exhibit.  It was really neat! And it looked difficult to do. Then we hung out in the botanical gardens and took pictures in telephone booths.  We went back into town around 6 and everything was closed there where no people around at all!  It was a ghost town!!  We managed to find a place open for supper, Made in Mexico...in Irishtown (the name of the street)...in Gibraltar...five minutes away from Spain. We got done eating and when we back outside, still no one to be found.  The square was even deserted.  I don't understand where all the people went to.  Again we found a pub that was open and we had ice cream sundaes and watched the futbol game.  When the game got over...the pub turned into a karaoke bar!  It was pretty fun to watch people go sing, but the best part was the glass blower from earlier in the day came in!!  Very weird!  He came over and talked to us and then he gave us his and his son's YouTube links because they are in a band!  It was all just very strange!  I haven't checked out the links yet, but I'll put them up here soon too so you all can see who we met.  Maybe they'll be good too.

 We walked back across the landing strip and the border and made it safely back into Spain.  Sunday we were off to Malaga!

Relaxation and Getting to Know My Senora

  So second week of classes went well, and I finally have a routine so that was wonderful!  My busiest days are Mondays.  I'm at the school from 8:30am to 9pm.  I have a few hour long break in between classes, but not enough time to go home. We also found out this week that intramurals don't start until the first week of March, so still a few more weeks to wait.  Other than Mondays, I go to school in the morning and then have the afternoons/nights free and no class on Friday. So this week with my free time, I have done a lot of relaxing and have gotten to know my Senora a little better. 

Facts about Senora Perez Pirez
  1) She has 3 children.  Two girls and a boy.  Apparently my roommate Kelsi looks like one of them, because when the oldest daughter comes to visit that's what she always tells us.
  2) We had a conversation about what I study in school.  I told her math and that I want to be a math teacher.  She then went on a rant about how she doesn't like math and that it's hard, so that must mean I have a big hard head. 
 3) She asked us at lunch the other day which of us spoke more Spanish, Kelsi or I.  I said Kelsi probably does.  Then she went on about how we don't understand anything or talk much.  This is not true.  I really understand a lot, it just takes me awhile to think of how to respond in Spanish, and the lady does not like to stop talking so there is very little time to respond.  She thinks I don't know, but I do. :)
4)  Two days ago at supper I heard a noise and so I started to look around the kitchen.  Above the sink I spotted a bird in a cage!! A bird!  This is a new addtiton to our house!  So the next day we were going to ask her about it, because she wasn't in the house at the moment.  So the next day at lunch I'm looking to see where the bird is, and it's not there!  Who gets a bird for just one day!  So we asked her where it went.  First off, she was really excited that we knew the word for bird.  Why?  I don't know, because it's a simple word, but that's okay.  So she told us, that she put it the extra bedroom we have (that no one uses) so it could see people on the street and then maybe it would start singing.  Because she's had it for one day and it hasn't sang yet.  She said that it was expensive and that if it didn't start singing soon, she was going to take it back. This made me laugh because it sounded so familiar to me :)  So yes, now we have a bird that is locked up in a room no one goes into. 
5) She is diabetic.
6) She asked me again what I studied, again I replied math, and we had the exact same conversation.  She doesn't listen very well.  But that's alright because then we have things to talk about all the time.

   On Thursday night we went wine tasting for school. We have Granada Seminars like three times a week, and this week's was on wine tasting.  It was a lot of fun and really interesting.  A lady taught us how to properly hold a wine glass.  We learned about the different types of wines and how to tell how old or how much alcohol is in it just by looking at it.  We got to do the whole, twirling, smelling, tasting thing too which was fun.  However, I learned that I do not like wine.  It was not good.  But it was a really fun experience!

  Not much happened this week, but it was really nice to just hangout and get to know Senora Perez Pirez a little better. 

First Week of Classes

  Classes started this week and they seem to be going pretty well. All of my classes are in Spainsh, so I am learning about other things, but the teachers lecture in Spanish.  It's pretty easy to understand them, because they know that we are hear learning the language as well.  They slow down a lot and try to use words we are more familiar with, or at least lots of hand gestures.  It's much easier than understanding my Senora.  However, it is easy to stop paying attention because you have to constantly translate what they are saying.  It's kind of a good and bad thing.  It forces me to concentrate so I know what they are saying, but sometimes I have no idea so I start to daydream.  I should work on not doing that.  But so far, they're all going well!

   I am taking a Spanish Literature class, Islamic Culture, History of Art in Spain, a Grammer class, and an oral and writing class.  Plus, through our program we have to take phonetics, tutorials, and Granada Seminar.  We only have those one day a week though. I think Islamic Culture is going to be my favorite class.  It's really interesting and the teacher is funny so it makes the time go by faster.  My least favorite class already is Literature.  No me gusta!  It's very boring, hard, and it's at 8am.  Not a good combination.  I found out on Thursday that I didn't go to my Tutorials class which is on Mondays.  Oops!  I didn't even know I was taking that class!  Apparently, there were a lot of people that didn't go to theirs either.

  The best news about classes here, is I don't have any on Friday!  It's fantastic!  And today we registered the classes we are taking here so we can get credit at Central.  My class load here is equivalent to 19 credits there!  It's crazy because it doesn't seem like that many.  I guess that's a good thing.

    Well I don't know much more, expect we are trying to plan a trip for next weekend.  We don't really know where we want to go though.  Suggestions are welcome! :)

When in Rome…

             So I got back from Morocco on Tuesday night and less than 12 hours later I was headed on a plane to Rome, Italy!  All we had were our plane tickets too so we weren’t quite sure where we were staying or what we were really planning on doing.  When we got to the airport there were like 5 bus drivers flocking towards us to take us to our hotel.  The problem with this was we didn’t have a hotel.  So we went to find some internet at the airport and found a hostel.  We ended up going with 5 other people in a van to get there.  This ride was a lot of fun and very interesting because there were 8 of us and only 7 seats so we were all jammed in.  There was a couple with us from Australia and they kept making jokes about the whole thing.  It was entertaining.  We were the first to be dropped off, and we get to the hostel and they say that they don’t have any rooms for tonight.  So now we are walking around Rome at about 9pm trying to find internet again so we can find a hostel.  We ended up finding a place with internet, which was much cheaper than the internet in the airport, and booked a hostel but just for one night because it was pretty expensive.  We find the hostel and get a room, but it’s actually not a hostel it’s a hotel so it was pretty expensive.  It’s all right though we got it all figured out and ended up booking a different place for the next two nights. 

We went out and experience our first Italian food, pizza.  It was delicious!  We asked the waiter if they were personal sized and he said yes.  Definitely not personal sized, so we all had a medium pizza to ourselves.  It was very good though, the best meal we had their except for the gelato of course.  The food was one of the best parts about the trip.  Pizza, pasta, gelato, my three favorite things! 

Our first day there we pretty much backpacked across all of Rome.  Our new hostel was on the other side of town, so we took our bags and walked there sightseeing along the way.  We saw to the Castle Sant’ Angelo, the Pantheon, and the Trevi Fountain.  They were all very cool!  The second day we went to The Vatican and saw the Spanish Steps.  We also walked through Heart Park.  This isn’t what the park is actually called, but it’s shaped like a heart so we just called it that.  The third day we went to the Coliseum and the Roman Forum.  The Coliseum was my favorite, it’s so big! Then we had a lot of time to kill because we had to catch a 9pm bus so we could get to the airport. Our flight was for 6am the next day, but the last bus left at 9.  So before we left we went back to the Trevi Fountain and hung out for awhile.  Also, experiencing a night at the airport was pretty interesting too.

 In Rome, we also met a lot of people at our hostel.  The first night we met a guy from California who is friends with a girl from Central!  It’s such a small world!  So we talked to him for awhile and he told us about some famous Gelatarias, which were very good.  We also met a Canadian, a few Australians, and a Brazilian.  It was fun to meet and hang out with people from all over, and here about all the places everyone had been.  It was a great trip and I really want to go back to Italy some day!