This past week

Let's see. There isn't that much to talk about. Oh I know, Tuesday I went to the police station because I was applying for a residency card which I should get in about 40 days. Wednesday almost all of the students here made different american style dishes and then we took the tram to the university and had diner with spanish students. Obviously, they made spanish food. YUMMMM. One girl made this french toast type of thing that was just amazing. There were meat balls and spanish omelets. Bread with tomato spread--one of my favorites, sausage and just a bunch of really yummy food. Abby and I were feeling a little lazy so we made a fruit salad with apples, peaches, bananas and pineapple. It was pretty good. We wanted to put watermelon in it, but they didn't have any. None at consum or the fruteria. Bummer but hey it's ok. I met a lot of really nice spaniards. They would talk to us in English and we wold respond in spanish. Well, that's at least what I did, I don't know what the other kids did. Thursday, I was stressed. Doing homework and studying for a quiz I have on Tuesday so I didn't get to have much  fun. Actually, I lied. A group of 8 of us went to this Italian restaurant and I got a vegetable lasagna. Holy shit it was really good. I wrote a couple letters as well. Lori, I don't know if you read this, but you have two coming your way. I'm sorry for the long wait. There arren't that many days until I come home and get to see everyone over Christmas break. Ahhhhh I love it here but I am so excited to come home and see my parents and brother and to hang out with friends.

Today we went to the Bejis mountains. It was kind of a hard hike for me but I managed. My right foot, especially my right ankle, isn't very happy with me right now but whatever. I can do anything that anyone else can do. I just might be in the back of the line and I may be struggling to keep up but Colin and Angel, I think that's how you spell his name, stayed back with me. They helped me climb over rocks and puddles and stuff like that. It was really pretty. There was a point where I was hugging this slippery rock and people basically carried me through this one section. It get's embarrassing sometimes and most of the times I wish I could be like everyone else but I can't. And that's okay. I have had the best groups of people surrounding me my whole life that help me along. Every single one of you has helped me in one way or another. And for that I thank you.

For now, I am going to go out to dinner with Colin and then grab my bottle of vodka and orange juice because it's the weekend and I can. Good night.

Farewell

As I sit in this lovely hotel bar with nothing to do on a Saturday night but drink a vodka tonic, it's a sad moment as the thoughts of my family leaving in the very early morning linger in the back of my head. But for now I'll let my mind venture back to when dad and Auntie Paula first arrived. I can still remember crossing the street in a giddy galloping strut waiting to get a familiar person into my arms. I had a cafe con leche in hand and I just grabbed my aunt, as dad was trying with not a lot of success to ask where the apartment that we were staying was. Why am i being so descriptive? I have no clue. I guess because it's a Saturday and I'm bored.

So lets see. Sunday they get here. We go touring the city, we go into the Cathedral and to the top of the serrano towers just outside the study center. When we got to our apartment in port Saplaya we ate a delicious italian meal out in the plaza.

Monday was great. I opened a bank account only speaking spanish. Granted it took me about two and a half hours but hey that's something for me. Especially since I'm a little timid when it comes to speaking spanish. Roxanne, Paula's friend came along for the trip as well and arrived on Tuesday. So anyway I guess I'll just give you the highlights of my trip.

#1 We went shopping. Lots and lots of shopping. I got the cutest green dress with birds on it that I can't wait to wear and many other things. I've even bought a few gifts for friends and family.

#2 We went to the central market. It was awesome. This of course was my fourth or fifth time going but I think I just loved being able to explore and see different things with the fam. We got some good stuff too. I'm pretty sure Roxanne bought like six bottles of olive oil. But hey that's ok because we're on vacation.

#3 Found the best Paella place ever. Ok it was really expensive but hey it was some damn goos Paella.

Last but not least #4. When we were in Port Saplaya at some other delicious italian restaurant, where I had the best pizza ever. I'm taking my roommates there. I don't care if we have to take a cab. I met Suni, well at least that's how I'll write it but je was so sweet. We went back there three times. He gave me his jacket one time bcause I was cold. It smelt strongly of cologne and cigarette smoke. Oh jeez that's my favorite. Sorry Colin, You might have some competition ;)

I think that's all I have to say. I still have a lot of vodka tonic to drink. Until next time.

Gosh I've missed blogging

Every other day

Most of my friends are taking their midterms right now and are in class or are planning their fall break plans so I'm lonely. Laying on my bed listening to the new Mumford & Sons cd. If you don't have it, I highly recommend getting it. Ahhh it's so good. But if you are looking for calm music try Bon Iver. That man can make me sit and cry even if I'm in a good mood. For Mumford I would say " I will wait" and "ghosts that we knew" are the ones to listen to. For Bon Iver anything, "Skinny Love" "Michicant" "Calgary" "Blood Bank"  I'm very excited to say that I am going to Lisbon Portugal to see him Perform with one of my best friends Alex. We are both pretty big music nerds. That reminds me I should probably buy those tickets and tickets to get there and a hostel and the list goes on and on. My other roommate Abby and I and I think all the girls of apartment six want to go to Sweden over Thanksgiving so I need to look at that as well.

My dad and Aunt Paula are coming to visit on Saturday. I haven't seen my Auntie Paula since graduation so I'm very excited to see her. I'm also just as excited to see my dad. The next 10 days are going to be a lot of fun. No school and a whole week to hang with some family. I will say that I'm very jealous of everyone in the program because everyone is traveling to different countries, Italy Germany, Amsterdam, well that's a city, Switzerland and many otter. I really want to go to Berlin. This is weird and I have yet to talk to Andy, my brother, about it but I have a mission. He has this sweet picture next to a piece of graffiti and I want to go find it and take the same picture. I don't know why I want to but I really want to. It would just be something cool to do. And then it's something I can say we both Have done. I really miss my brother. It's odd though because his first few years of college I didn't talk to him and I was just fine but the past few years we have grown closer and I truly miss him. Hopefully he can come visit in the Summer. Maybe take a few weeks off of work to come travel with me.

So I guess I don't have anything exciting to talk about. It's just a normal day. I'm tired but I promised Abby I wouldn't nap because yesterday I took four naps. I don't know what it is. I'm just tired and not up to much. Am I feeling a little down? Ya, sure I guess but that's been my normal for quite a while.

The Sun Also Rises

I went to a bull fight and although it was a part of the spanish culture that needs to be experienced, I doubt I'll go again. I can now say that I understand how Ernest Hemingway fell in love with Matadors. That was the part of the bull fight that I could watch over and over again. They danced around the bull in beautiful silk outfits. I did a little background and I think it's called "traje de luces"which means the suit of lights. In Spain they call the matadors and I guess all those that fight in the ring, torero. Then again I learned all of that on wikipedia so for all I know it's not true. Back to the Matador, he would dance around the bull slapping his feet against the dirt ground getting the bulls attention. He would wave a beautiful pink, silk cape. Picadores, people riding on horses, came out and would encourage the bull to attack the horse while injuring the bull. They also stuck these pole type things into the shoulders to weaken the bull. I'm not going to go into detail, I have a video but I don't want to put it up and make anyone uncomfortable. Finally the head Matador comes out with a muleta, or the red cape and a sword. He obviously kills it but I'd rather not go into the details. They do it to six bulls. Personally it's part of the Spanish culture and I enjoyed watching the historical, performance of the fight but hated watching the bull suffer.  So that was Sunday, oh and if anyone wants to see the video I can send it to you. I will warn you that I unfortunately got a video of the one Matador that seemed to have some trouble. You can figure that out on your own.

Today is the 9th of October in Valencia, also known as Valencia Day. It's a day to celebrate the independence of Valencia. It was no longer Moorish but King Jamie brought Christianity.  So last night or early this morning there was a fireworks show in the riverbed at midnight. These were fireworks like I had never seen. Growing up so close to Kings Island allowed me to watch fireworks every night at 10 in the summer if I wanted but when I watched these, I was shocked. It was beautiful and loud. I'm not kidding when I saw that it was like going to a concert and standing next to the speakers. I couldn't hear anything. The ones that freaked me out were the ones that are just like big bombs and are really loud, you could feel them on your skin. They made the ground shake. Valencia is known for its pyrotechnic abilities. I don't know how you would say that. But there is a two year school here where someone can go and be a certified pyrotechnic.

This afternoon Alex, Abby, Galen, Michael and I went and had lunch at the plaza de la virgen. I had already eaten lunch with Colin, I made grilled cheese but I still went anyways. I tried Orxata and a croissant. They were out of the normal pastry that you dip in the drink. If I'm correct Orxata is a rice and milk drink. It is very sweet but realllllyyyy yummy and delicious. Then we walked to la plaza del ayuntamiento and heard anothter fireworks show. We were late because it started ten minutes early. I didn't see anything but I'm pretty sure that it called La Mascleta and there wash;t much to see but a lot to hear.

OK that's all for now, until next time...

tech problems

This thing ahh wasn't working, I hope you enjoyed

melancholy

This past week has been well not great. There are ups and downs in the world and this week was a down. Whether it's because I'm not longer traveling around this glorious country or because I miss my friends and family back home. My eyes have kind of been glued to facebook going through pictures of all of my friends back home It's weird but I'm savoring the memories I had with my friends and am experiencing the new memories they are making. The highlight of my week was getting a pack of m & ms from a friend when I was sick. He knew   I didn't feel well and so he went to the store and bought me m&ms. It was such a sweet gesture. I've been a little lazy the past few days. I've been enjoying my time laying in my bed and watching movies. I watched The Lucky One, The fighter and Savages. Don't be mad mom, I promise I'm studying and doing my work. I'm just resting trying to fight a bad cough and cold. Also, someone got me the new Mumford and Sons CD and I've just been listening to it over and over again. Marcus Mumford has put me to sleep the past few nights. Another thing that was great was that I heard from my high school spanish teacher. Hopefully, I can go visit him while on winter break. That man was a life savor for me at different times of the year, whether he knew it or not.  Yesterday was Friday which means no classes and a day trip. Many kids went to Munich for Oktoberfest and others went to Ibiza I don't know if that's how you spell it. It's an island off of Spain that's like the biggest party island. Apparently Lady Gaga was there. Even though I'm not a fan that would have been cool to see her. Anyway back to Friday, We got up at 9:00 and left for a winery and brewery that was about an hour and a half away. The winery was sweet. It was this big museum of like a little village type home and then we got to see how they made wine and tried two different kinds. Wine isn't my favorite so I only tried a little. Other people were gulping it down. After the winery we went and saw how silk was made and toured these underground caves. They wandered all around underneath this city. tHERE  were these huge jugs that held wine, bread, water and oil. There were slugs on the walls and wells that went on for forever. Then we went and had the best spanish ever. By this time it was about two and everyone was hungry. We sat down and waiting for us were these long sweet peppers and potato chips. Then a salad came out with apples, tomatoes goat cheese walnuts and other stuff. Along with the salad there were many baskets of bread and oil. Then there was a calamari croquette followed by a mushroom croquette followed by a shrimp kabob followed by a pork tenderloin with potatoes followed by cinnamon ice cream with a french toast type dessert followed by cafe con leche followed by sweet wine. Holy shit it was good but it was a lot of food. 

Ok I'm writing a lot but after lunch we went to a brewery. Let's be honest my choice of drink is Vodka so I wasn't a fan of the beer either but it was still fun to try it and taste different types of beers. When we got home I napped finished watching the savages and then went to an italian restaurant with Abby, Alex and Meredith. Ate a fantastic cheese ravioli that was totally worth the 11 euros and went home and fell asleep. I hope my tired body can get out of this study center soon and stop watching movies. Everyone went out last night and I fell like I missed out on a lot of fun but I'm just in a funk hopefully some afternoon shopping and a good dinner will pull me out from the bottom of this suffocating pool. Until next. Here are some pictures!

Pyrenees and Barcelona

Finally Home, well as close to home as I can make Valencia. It's actually funny because when I was in Barcelona I missed my bed back in the study center. So let's talk about my trip shall we? We left last Monday and got to Jaca at about 4:00 in the afternoon. Bus drivers are required to stop for 15 minutes every two hours. So It was kind of nice to get out and stretch. When we arrived we got to our rooms. Sarah was my roommate. It took us the first night to figure out how to make the Air conditioning work. Let's just say that first night I didn't sleep well at all. I can remember waking up at 3 and wishing it was time to get up. So then at about 5:00 I got my iPod to listen to for a few hours. Okay enough complaining. This trip was really cool. at about 6:00 the night we arrived we went to this miniature museum and saw a bunch on the really important monuments throughout aragon that were all scaled. They even had miniature Pyrenees Mountains and there were bridges where we could walk on top of them and stuff like that. It was kind of a long tour and everyone was tired and hungry so not that many people were paying attention. That night after the tour, we went to the Pilgrim Cafe and I sat with lex, Abby, Galen, Colin and Ignacio, the program jefe. I hate this amazing sandwich with a fried egg, lettuce, tomato, ham, cheese, mayo and bread. It was so good and so yummy. I went back the next day and thought about getting it again but didn't, I got something else but I haven't gotten that far yet. Tuesday we woke up, ate a fantastic breakfast in the lobby-eatingish place and then as a big group, we set out for the mountains. It was pretty chilly. We went on an half hour bus ride up the mountains and then started to hike. We got to hike part of the Camino de Santiago. Such a cool experience. I thought it was really cool when you looked over the mountains and could see France.  The walk was about 3 hours long. There were some areas where I would trip I almost fell once but I didn't because my guardian angel Abby grabbed my backpack and saved me!!! Thanks Abby. She even helped save me from falling when we were in Javia and went on a hike there too. That night for dinner we went back to the Pilgrim cafe and I ordered something that I had no idea what it was. That's kind of my new thing, I order stuff that I don't know what it is. It was a thing piece of grilled red pepper stuffed with some type of fish and then had a creamy sauce all over it. By far the best thing I ate while not in Valencia. On Wednesday we went to a castle that I don't remember the name of. It was really cool. There was this one room that if you stood in a specific spot your voice amplified everywhere. It was awesome. The acoustics in the chapel section were cool too. Being a singer, I stayed back and sang a little to hear what it would sound like, I was amazed it was so beautiful. After the castle, we went white water rafting and kayaking. The water was freezing but they gave us full body suits. I got pulled off a few times but had a blast. Plus I got to jump off this rock. It wasn't that hight but was still fun. Some people did it more than once but I was being a baby and only went once. The next morning we left for Saragosa, I don't know if that's how you spell it but some people had different plans for the weekend. A group of us decided to go to Barcelona for the weekend. We hopped on a bus and were there in about 4 hours. The hostel we stayed at was St. Christopher's. I think we got really lucky because it was only a few weeks old and was super nice. They have different ones around Europe and I would stay there again. So Now we enter Barcelona. A beautiful city but unfortunately it rained the whole time we were there. On Friday we went on a walking tour that was a little too long for my liking but it was interesting. I saw a really big church that I don't know the name of, saw some of Gaudi's artwork and roman columns. After the walking tour we went to the Picasso Museum. I really enjoyed that but was pretty tired by the end of it and was hungry. We weren't allowed to take any pictures so that was kind of a bummer. The thing I liked most was just seeing the signature of his name on the paintings and ceramics. It made it more realistic to me. The next day it was really pouring but we went and saw la Sagrada Familia. Very incredibly beautiful. We didn't go inside because it was 11 euros and plus I'm going back to Barcelona in the spring with the school again. Sunday we left. It of course was beautiful in Barcelona that day but I was pretty sick and just wanted to get back to Valencia. 

Sorry it was so long but I thought you all would want to know what I was doing.