Just another day in Spain

Well, well, well, let's see, yesterday was another pretty average day. I woke up, went to class, came home, ate lunch, siesta-ed for about 25 minutes (we'll get to that later), went to some museum, got some cerveza y tapas, and then went home and did all the homework I had, ate a little pizza for dinner, studied some more and went to bed. Bowling the other night was excellent, I bowled quite well, if I do say so myself. I won, so I guess that's something. The bowling alley in Ubeda was closed (it's open different hours on different days) so we went to Linares, a nearby (but not so nearby) town. The bowling alley there (it's a much bigger town) also had a movie theater, a Burger King, an arcade, a pizza restaurant and a play thing (think: McDonald's play area x5). Apparently I wear a size 38 or 39 in the shoes here. So just add 30 to your US size if you were wondering what size shoe you wear in Spain. Who knew?

So today was the first day I had a real siesta all week. Monday we had to go pottery it up, Tuesday I went with Dani to his school, then yesterday we had to go to a museum. Excuse me professor, but siesta is a big part of the culture. There's a reason everything is closed and we're the only people in the street. We went to this archeological museum. Which would have been cool if I liked looking at clay pots and cement ruins that you can't even tell what they were. And also, maybe if I was well rested it would have been better. I'll admit it, I was a little grumpy while we were there. Okay, enough ranting about sleep.

Today has been a pretty good day. I woke up, went to class, came home, ate lunch, SIESTAed for a solid two hours then went to the Academy, where my mom works, to talk English with some students. They are SO precious. They were all like 13-14 years old and were in awe of our American-ness. They had a million questions. We were talking about something and I said "My friend Justin...something or other" and they were like "JUSTIN?! YOU KNOW JUSTIN BIEBER?!" Apparently, there is only one Justin in America. My padre asked "Do you like Spanish man?" (men). To which my reply was just a simple "Yes, they are nice." and he said "shot the sheriff". I don't know if that was in appropriate context or no, but way to watch some American movies. My parents work at the Academy and were showing Amanda and I off to everyone. At one point she introduced us as "mis chicas" meaning "my girls"...they're so proud to be able to introduce us to people they know! Absolutely adorable.

The internet at my house has been down yesterday and today so now I am sitting at my friend Amanda's house and me, her and her sister are all sitting on our computers. My padre says "I try to mend the wi-fi." (note: it's not wi-fi, it's wee-fee). My brother has been in Malaga since yesterday morning and it's been kind of lonely at home without him. He went there for a job interview and has a test for it tomorrow. Then he will come home...after I leave for Malaga for the weekend. Ironic, I know. I'm excited to go to Malaga, it's got some beautiful beaches and our whole class is going, minus Amanda, who has to go to Casa Rural with her family for the weekend like she told them she would. How sad.

So my real dad got my fligt back to the United States changed. I'm going to London to see my friend Kate after I am done in Spain, but I booked my ticket as round trip so I would have to go back to Madrid to fly home. Now I get to come home from London. Yay for not having to navigate a foreign airport in Spanish!! Getting back to Spain from London is now one less stress that I have to worry about. I do, however, need to figure out how to get to London from Madrid. aka purchase a train ticket. Then I have to figure out where I'm staying. I think Kate is going to be living in a dorm so I'm thinking I'm not going to be able to stay there. I will probably get a hotel, just because I will have ALL my things and I don't trust staying with other people in a hostel.

That's it for now I suppose, I'm just hanging out with Amanda and Marta and then we may go run in el parque and later we are going to see a movie with her whole family and getting pizza. I think they want to try and make us feel more American. Ha! Adios!

Schooled

Well, it turns out pottery isn't my thing either. I don't understand how I'm so bad at things that are cool. I guess I'm pretty average in everything I do. Thanks Mom and Dad for making me try everything and never getting good at anything. So the pottery place was cool. It was like watching a magic show watching Paco Tito make his pottery. Then when we got the chance to do it everyone seemed to just pick it up like it was easy or something. I can assure you, it's not. There's no diligent way to coordinate how fast you spin the wheel thing with the foot pedal, add water, touch the clay so it molds how you want to and think all at the same time. There's just not.

Paco helping me

Got a little dirty...

So last night I didn't do anything because I had alot of homework and I need to be getting ample sleep. Amanda was over for a while and we hung out with my brother. Then today I went to class, then ate lunch, had a quick siesta and then went to my brother's school where he teaches with him. I've never been so popular in my life. I felt bad because those kids spoke way too fast for me to understand them, but they let me play (um, more like schooled me in) soccer and basketball. Even the kids that were "bad" at futbol were better than the good kids in the US. It was funny because there's also the same kids in the class. You know, the bigger red-neck looking kid who's the bully, the skinny little loner, etc. Then they had a fiesta and I've never seen children eat up so much food so quickly. They were super cute and of course I forgot my camera.

Now, we are waiting for Oscar to come get us so we can go bowling. Yes, bowling. Not thinking that they had it here I said something about it. Turns out they do. Soooo, now we're going. My biggest concern is how I'm going to get shoes. Because the sizes are different here and I have absolutely NO idea what size shoe I wear here.

Anyways, sorry my life is dulling down some. I think I'm just getting used to things and not everything is as exciting anymore so I don't remember it. And for that, I apologize.

Salsa!

I don't have time to siesta today so I guess I will update about life in Spain. (since yesterday). Yesterday ended up being a pretty lazy day. My host parents go salsa dancing every Sunday evening and they invited Amanda and I along this week. Sorry, no videos this time. I'm going to try to copy Amanda's blog post to here because she describes it perfectly. We pretty much had the same experience. Except I wore flats (still not the high heels needed) and I was already at my house. Yep, as for dancing with rat-tail man, thank goodness he had patience.

"I know that I briefly told you about my dancing experience...but for those of you who really know me, you know that dancing is one of my favorite things to do. So I'm going to elaborate for you about how awesome these three hours were....

Ok, so I arrive at my friend Sarah's house wearing what I think is a very cute and appropriate outfit, but I was soon told by Sarah's father that my sandals were going to be terrible for dancing lol (of course he said all this in Spanish which I understood about every other word, but his look said it all) Sarah's mom comes in and looks like something from a movie. She is wearing a denim dress with pink strapy (i know not a word Jessica) heels. I tell her how beautiful she looks and again get looks because of the shoes. Around 7:00 we head to the place where we will be dancing. Upon arrival I get real nervous because there are a lot of people (a lot of older people) here. Most of the women have on tight dresses and all are wearing high-heels. Of course, Sarah and I get passed around being introduced to people always with two cheek kisses. Sarah is introduced as their daughter from the USA and I'm the friend who is always at their house lol, (but really they love me). The dancing starts with one male instructor leading a group of 12 middle-aged women in new dance steps. This guy's clothes are so tight it is ridiculous, pero I don't know what is more ridiculous, his tight clothes, his vive la salsa shirt, or his one dread that looks like a rat-tail. Nonetheless, this man is like an angel on the dance floor. His hips and feet move in ways I ever dreamed of.

The dance lessons continued for about and hour and then the men and women took the dance floor together. I have never seen such dancing. Everyone was different but gorgeous. There was one man who looked like he could have been a college linebacker, but his feet moved like a ballerina. This man asked Sarah to dance and she did excellent. Then of course it was my turn.

So people...picture the scene. a small blonde girl with sandals on, taking the dance floor with this large and older man who could have been my dad. He spoke no English, but yet thought he could teach me how to dance. and yes, he surely did! It was so awesome just being led and not relying on conversation and words to dance. I messed up often, but he was so kind and helped me get back on beat. The night continued on as Sarah and I danced with each other and her parents.

Then, it happened! Rat-tail man asked me and Sarah to dance. Whatever, I thought, this will be just like before. Nope I was wrong. It was only me and him on the dance floor. Of course we started out with a crazy move and I was terrified, but we had a blast. We dipped, and spun, and did some dirty dancing moves (don't worry parents they weren't really dirty). At one point, he
literally dragged me as quick as possible all the way across the dance floor. It was crazy. We nded on a dip and the crowd went wild (in Spanish) lol. No but really everyone said I did good.

Oh what a night. It was ended around 9 because I had to be back to my house for dinner and to study! But I definitely plan on going back to the Salsa club next Sunday and bringing it back to America. Just wait friends!"


So yeah, while dancing with middle aged Spanish men isn't exactly my cup of tea, it was definitely really fun and I enjoyed it alot. It's crazy how much you can communicate through dancing and body movement because literally the people there spoke no English. I wish I was good at dancing, but that's the thing. Nobody here judged. They all thought I did "great" (probably just being nice, but let me have my moment) and were really encouraging. I know I didn't do well. Please, rat-tail/vive la salsa shirt dude had to stop like 3 times in the middle so I could get back on count with him. And at the end he did some fancy spin thing then dropped me (like dancing dropped, not for real. a dip?) and I thought I was about to hit the floor. This guy probably weighed about 15 pounds less than me and was about half the width. How the hell he caught me blows my mind.

Today has been pretty average. I woke up this morning, went to class, learned some things, took a test, turned in a paper (in Spanish, of course), came home, ate some lunch (yummy pasta thing, "salad", bread, watermelon) and now I should be siesta-ing but it's a sad day because there is no siesta today. Why? Because I get to go make pottery at 4. I'm pretty excited to be a pottery-ist. Ceramist? Hopefully, my hands-on art project skills are better than my dancing skills.

Also, in the USA, everyone is celebrating Memorial Day. Yep, that doesn't exist here. So Happy Memorial Day to all the American Soldiers, past and present. Thank you for keeping America and our freedoms safe. And a very special shout out to my real brother for his service to our country! :)

Granada, Futbol y Borracha

Hmmm, so much to write about, I hope I can remember it all! We went to Granada early Friday morning and spent the day walking up and down (mostly up) mountains. We just walked around enjoying Granada and then we walked/climbed up to Alhambra. Talk about a fucking hike. It sits up on a high mountain. But it was really cool. It was huge. I couldn't imagine living there. There's like a palace part and a fortress part. It's really pretty. Here is a video I took from across the way of Alhambra. Granada, especially Alhambra, is pretty touristy. (Example: Amanda was wearing an NCSU shirt, some guy made the wolfpack hand symbol at us. Small world. Literally.) It's still really tranquil while also a huge city. I would love to go back to Granada someday and see everything else it has because we only saw a very small part of the city since we were only there for 2 days. Me with Alhambra in the background

Yesterday we went to the Cathedral. There literally aren't words that can describe it. I'm still marveling over the immaculate detail and size of this church. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel are buried in one part of it, and that part is considered sacred so no photos were allowed. There is another part where they actively have mass and you could take some photos in there of certain things. It just blows my mind how something so awesome was built without any technology and just to think about how much time it took someone to carve out the designs and make the stained glass window. I love when I literally can't fathom something.

This picture does absolutely no justice to the detail and architecture of the Cathedral.

Last night was the Barcelona vs Manchester United Champions League Cup game. BIG DEAL here. Like we're talking everything but bars shut down and when Barca won there was just mass chaos in the streets. The police blocked off the main square here so people could celebrate. Completely insane. Also completely insane is where we went last night after the bar. It's called Botellon. You just go out to where there is a bunch of warehouses and there's hundreds of people out there just drinking in the street. It's a cheap way for everyone to hang out and drink. The policia rolled through and just said hey to everyone. We stayed there til about 5am and we were among the first to leave. I have no clue how these people do it! Here's a vocab lesson: the spanish word for drunk is borracho/a.

Amigos

I don't know what's in store for today. Probably a good rotation between napping and homework and eating. As promised, here are the videos of my family showing me salsa and Amanda and Dani flamenco-ing. Hasta luego!

Gone to Granada

Just a little heads up, I'm going to Granada for all of today and most of tomorrow and will be without internet so don't expect any new updates until atleast Saturday night or Sunday! Sorry, I know it'll be rough not to hear from me. It's so early now. Just about 7am. I've been up for an hour and have done nothing that I needed to get done before we leave. But I am talking to a couple people from home on Skype. It's like 1am/bedtime there. Still is so weird to me. I guess I better go get dressed/ready, pack, and get breakfast so I can leave to walk to the bus station on time. It would kind of suck to miss the bus to Granada...

The Subjunctive

Who knew I would get yelled at if I didn't update this thing every day. Sorry people, sorry. So much has happened in the past 2 days I hope I can remember it all! Let's see on Tuesday I don't think I did anything too exciting. Just class, lunch (tortillas with some tomatoey sauce), siesta, went for a run around El Parque Norte with Amanda, dance party, homework, bed. Pretty typical day for here I suppose. Running around the park was like death. Between being in a high altitude, 90 degrees of blazing sun (it's stronger here because we're closer to it on the mountain) and hills, I thought I was going to quit breathing and die from exhaustion. Then yesterday we had class for one hour less than normal and went to Baeza for the afternoon. It's Ubeda's "sister city". It's a little more modern in part of it, but there is an older part too. I uploaded a video of the panoramic view from Baeza. If you look really, really hard you can Ubeda in the background.


After we got back from Baeza, I came home and siesta-ed like there was no tomorrow. I woke up and ate some lunch that was left for me. It was lentils in some kind of Jumbalaya like thing. (Use you imagination here.) Then I went shopping with Amanda and her hermanas, Marta y Sofia. After that we went back to their house for a little and then it was time to meet up with some of my classmates for drinks and tapas. I invited my host brother out too. It was a good time. Maybe too good of a time, because every single one of us struggled to stay awake in class today.


Speaking of class today, we were learning the subjunctive, which doesn't really exist in English. I hate it. Hate it more than the past and future tenses, ser vs estar and por vs para all combined. Well, it may be a tie if it's all combined, but still. Spanish is such a difficult language to learn. In English we have I run, you run, he/she runs, we run, they run. In Spanish each person is a different conjugation of the verb. UGH.


Today's lunch was some fish (I think tilapia, maybe?) and french fries and a ham sandwich on special Ubeda bread (Mom's side of the family you will appreciate this: it's pretty much bread that is covered in seasoning salt) and cherries. Delish. And of course, as always, there was "salad" aka tomatoes, tuna, cheese, and maybe pears? in olive oil. Yummm. And just a bit about the olive oil here: the stuff you buy at the grocery store in America is NOT olive oil. The real stuff is so good and rich. The people here eat it like candy. They put it on everything. Even their skin is olive toned (okay...too far?). But seriously. Olives are everywhere and olive oil is more common than butter and grease in the United States. Hard to believe, I know.


The other day when I was talking about how horrible I was at Flamenco, I wasn't kidding... here is a video a girl in my class posted on youtube. I'm in the pink shirt. Seriously, try not to laugh TOO hard at my complete lack of coordination. I have a couple other videos I need to upload. Like one of Amanda teaching Dani how to Flamenco. (His reaction: "I am learning Flamenco from an American?!") Another is when my host momma and Dani were showing Amanda and I how to Salsa. Maybe in the next blog. This one is long enough and it's cutting into my siesta time!

buenos dias

I have about 10 or 15 minutes to kill real quick before I go to class so here's my funny story of the morning. First off, everyone here wears slippers or flip flops inside the house. They think it's really bizarre that I prefer to be barefoot. So I just finished my tostada y leche and I had gone back to my room to grab my water bottle to fill it up. When I walked back in the kitchen my madre told me that I "walk too quietly" and she "can't hear me coming"...I'm sorry, next time I'll stomp down the hallway. (Mind you, the other 2 people in the house are still sleeping.) This is after my hermano told me that I "close the door too loud" (the doors here are heavy! and the handles are kind of odd, I'll have to take a picture). Geesh, I don't know if I should be louder or quieter! I suppose I will go wait outside for Amanda now so we can walk to class. It's supposed to be a toasty 32 degrees here today. In celsius. That's a comfortable 90 degrees in Farenheit. And it's only spring here. Ayyyy!

Flamenco!

Today: woke up at 7:30, get ready for school, ate breakfast, met Amanda and walked to school for class at 9. Class was 9-1:30 and I reeeeaaaallllyyy struggled to stay awake. 4 hours of sleep plus a class in all Spanish on a book you didn't understand does not equal anything good. After school, I came home, did one of the pages in my workbook and then it was lunch time. We ate this thing that was like french toast (minus butter and syrup) with a slice of ham and pate on it. It was pretty good. I'm not the biggest fan of pate but I liked the bread and the ham.

I only was able to siesta for about 20 minutes (but believe me, I got 20 minutes of hardcore siesta!) because my class had to meet down at the plaza at 3:45 to go to our dance class. We were taught Flamenco... that is the hardest freakin thing I have ever tried to do in my life. I'm the most uncooridnated person in the world. You have to move your wrists, arms, hips, and feet all separate from each other but at the same time. And click these little clicker things in a rhythm in your hands. And all to the fast beat of the music! Needless to say, I sucked at it. But it was fun! After our lesson, we watched these little girls do different kinds of dances. Holy smokes, they're amazing!

After that, Amanda and I came back to my house and attempted the rest of the homework. My padre ended up showing us a video of him and my madre salsa dancing in a "recital" (for lack of better term). They've been doing it for 8 years, I think. When my brother got home, Amanda and I were having a crazy dance party and decided to teach him the cupid shuffle...who knew that the directions to the song (to the left, to the left, to the left, to the left, to the right, to the right...) were also in Spanish?! However, he was not too good at learning to "walk it out". They use their hips too much here. It was like a salsa version of walking it out. Amanda went home after our little dance party around 9:30 and then it was dinner time. Dinner was an egg sunny-side-up and some kind of ham and bread. It was pretty good. Now I need to go shower and finish my homework and go to bed at a decent hour tonight since I did not sleep much last night. Which unfortunately means probably not skyping anyone still living on the east coast (aka everyone I know). Occasionally I get homesick for things, but it's just when I'm talking about them to my family or when I see something that reminds me. I have to keep telling myself to live it up because in a month, this new, crazy, awesome life will be over! Buenas Noches!

Wanted: Sleep!

The first part of today was pretty uneventful. After lunch, I siesta-ed for 2 hours or possibly more and then mi hermano asked me and Amanda to go out with his friends. It was quite the experience but so much fun. The guys here are really nice (like most of the people in general) and it's fun to hang out with people our age. Well, most are 22-23, but close enough. Some guy thought I was 25...uh yeah, in 5 years. They are just as curious about America and English as we are about Spain and Spanish. We exchanged sayings (good and bad) and taught each other "real life" Spanish/English. The only problem is that if this drinking keeps up I'm going to be poor and my homework is never going to get done. I'm supposed to be doing my homework right now but I'm taking a little break. It's 2 in the morning and I just want to sleep. I'm learning to live with the consequences of my actions! Here's a picture and then it's back to homework and then sleep. Tomorrow after class (from 9-1:30) we are learning flamenco dancing. Ayyyy! (what they say here instead of ah! or ugh!) Gracias Dios por siesta :)

Recovery Day

Well, yesterday was quite an eventful day, I suppose. I woke up around noon and then went over to Amanda's casa around 1:30 and had lunch over there. Her family is really fun. They had a bunch of people over for lunch. We got schooled in foosball or futboline, as it's known here. It's a big game here. Like they play tournaments in bars for money and stuff. For lunch we had paella and then some good bread with sugar thing for dessert. After lunch, we didn't have enough time to siesta so we worked on homework a little before we had to meet our class down at the plaza. We went on a tour of some Ubeda museums and then it ended with dinner at the last place with some of the host families that overlooked the mountains and olive groves and was really pretty. They served Sangria at dinner, which was SO good and we were drinking it like it was water...probably not the best idea. Also at dinner, there was a belly dancer. One of the dads told us "this is not typical of Ubeda!"...I guess belly dancers can be comparitive to strippers a little bit?!

Amanda's padre, Me and Amanda with the Paella

At one of the museums

The view as the sun was going down...around 10:00pm

After dinner we walked to this bar that was actually really close to my house (the plaza is not) and we drank for a couple hours. It's kind of odd here how the bars work. You get your drink and then they just keep bringing you food (for free). They also give you a bowl of sunflower seeds and you just spit them on the floor. After the bar Amanda and I walked back to my casa. Her madre had told her to have my hermano walk us home or to call her and she would come pick her up because she didn't want her walking by herself. When we got to my casa, everyone was out for the night...and it was 3am! We walked to her house (about 3 blocks) and then her mom drove me back here. Her family really is so nice!

So now I just woke up for the day and I'm a little hungover. Apparently, that doesn't happen to anyone else here. They drink for hours and feel fine. Must be nice. They also apparently don't need sleep and make fun of me for sleeping so much. I think today will be a day of homework and possibly going to the pool at Amanda's casa. I had some bread thing with chocolate in the middle for breakfast that was really good. And I had my milk with breakfast, madre makes me. Dani asked if Amanda and I wanted to go get coffee or whatever with him and his friends later tonight so we may do that after hours of homeworking.

When in Spain...

Do as the Spanish do? My legs hurt so bad. It's a mix between sore from walking for hours everyday and pain from dehydration (they really don't drink that much water here). After siesta today, Amanda and I walked around Ubeda. We went in some shops in the market and we both bought some clothes. We were just wandering around, hoping we don't walk near the bad part of town (where there might be gypsies) and we stumbled upon this absolutely breathtaking ledge that overlooks the olive groves with the mountains in the distance. Since it has just kind of rained (like 5 drops for 5 seconds) there was even a rainbow!
Afterwards, we went and got tapas y cerveza. Today's tapa was calamari. Much better than snails. The beer here is much stronger than in America. Es una cosa buena. One cup and you're feeling pretty good. It's also fairly cheap. When I got back home around 9:30 or so mis padres had already left for the night. I'm not really sure where they went but they left a note that they'll be back late. Apparently, they're really into dancing (salsa, flamenco, tango, etc), so I have a feeling that's where they went. My brother is about to go out with his friends to get some drinks, but he has to be back early because he goes to Jaen for class in the morning. Right now he's listening to music and the majority of it is American. I think it's funny that they still listen to a lot of American music, even though it's in English. What if the only English you knew was Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and the Black-Eyed Peas lyrics? However, the Spanish songs that are mixed in aren't bad at all, I may have to download some new music.

It's almost 11 and I'm about ready for bed. The days here are long and tiring but so much fun. I love that I'm getting used to the town and exploring all kinds of new things. I also love that taking a nap everyday is acceptable. Not just acceptable, expected. My spanish is already improving, even though it's still very broken. I like speaking with my family because they talk slowly and know that I can't form sentences sometimes. Being in public is a whole different story. I did do very well with the restaurant lingo today, I was pretty proud of myself for that. I may attempt to work on some homework before I get on skype at midnight. It's so weird that it's midnight here and only 6 o'clock at home. Like on the video it's daylight in Cary and I'm about to go to bed. For our homework we have to read multiple chapters out of both of our novels and complete some pages in our workbook, along with writing a page long paper using certain tenses. I hope that we only have this much homework because it's the weekend. I can't handle that much everyday! When would I explore if I always have to do homework? The kids here are crazy though, they study ALL the time. Maybe I'll take a lesson from that and get started on my massive amounts of homework (all in only Spanish, of course).

Caracoles

After siesta yesterday I met up with a girl to go get our phones. I'm not really sure if mine works or not. Then we met our class at the plaza for a little history tour (en espanol, claro) from Isabel, who is our "local teacher", around the more historical part of Ubeda. It was beautiful. All of the sudden we reached the part of town that overlooks the olive groves with the mountains in the background and the whole group just stopped and stared in awe. On our way back into the main plaza (kind of like a downtown) we stopped and had tapas at a little tapas bar. Isabel ordered us all cerveza y caracoles. Yeahhhhh. They don't taste half bad, but the fact that I'm eating something's face kind of creeped me out, along with the fact that they're pretty much the chewiest meat you'll ever eat and you have to swallow it whole. The guy at the tapas bar kept telling us to just "suck it down". Uh, no thanks dude. So they serve it to you in like this little shot glass looking thing and you're supposed to drink the broth halfway then pour it out into the plate that the give you and eat them from there. You literally suck the snail out of the shell and then toss the shell back into the shot glass thing. Not my favorite tapa.

Juliet, Kenzie, Me and Amanda

How caracoles are served

And then they just stare at you...

After the plaza we went our different ways and I came home. Luckily, Amanda lives right up the street from me so we walk everywhere together. My madre made me a pizza for dinner. The pizza is on like a thick tortilla like bread and the tomato sauce tastes different. Almost sweeter, without any spices. The cheese here is better, too. (When madre is making lunch, she gives Danny and I cheese as a treat while we wait.) Then she put ham on it. The ham is SO good, but SO salty. After dinner, I sat and talked with Danny, mi hermano, for awhile, making good use of Google Translate and Spanglish. Then I took a shower, skyped with a friend, kind of did my homework and then passed out!

Today I woke up at 8 and then got ready and went to school. Amanda and her madre waited outside for me and we all walked to school (her madre's work is on the way). Her madre invited me to lunch tomorrow, which is kind of a big deal since lunch is their biggest meal here. Kind of like getting invited to a family dinner. We had class from 9 until 1:30 but the school has un receso a las 11. So basically we get a little "recess" at 11 for 30 minutes. It's basically a snacktime. These people eat SO much and they're all still so skinny! I don't get it!! In the second part of class we met our "companeros" that we'll be helping teach English while they help us with Spanish. I hope we get to keep our partners because I worked with two really nice girls that I actually had a good amount in common with. After school, Amanda and I walked home and stopped and played on the swings on the park we walk past. Then I got home just in time for almuerzo and today it was some delicious pasta with some kind of sausage and cheese in it. It was awesome. Now it's siesta and I was going to try and catch up on some homework since we have a lot for the weekend and it's all in another language. One of my classes is literally an "English class" but in Spanish. You know, grammar, phonetics, that kind of stuff. We don't have anything else to do today but Amanda and I may go walk around the market or the plaza for awhile after siesta. Adios!

Siesta

Right now is siesta and my tummy’s full of paella and some delicious salad thing and bread but before I take a food coma I thought I’d blog. This morning I woke up at 8:30 and it felt like I had slept for about 5 minutes. I was going to take a shower but couldn’t figure out how to work it and everyone else was still asleep. So I finished unpacking and slowly got ready for school. When my madre woke up, she came and asked what I wanted for breakfast. I told her any food was fine and she said that she would make toast. Well, my friends, toast here gets decorated with both olive oil and strawberry jelly. It was delicious but kind of heavy for breakfast. I ate the two pieces she gave me and the next thing I know she’s putting more on my plate. I didn’t want to offend her so I ate one and then politely told her I was full before I threw up. (I only told her I was full.) I also got fussed at for wanting water to drink. So I had some milk. Apparently you don’t drink just milk. You have to add sugar or colacao, which is kind of like Nesquick powder.

After breakfast, my brother walked me to school. We were just shown around the school and told what was expected of us from their end. The school is interesting. There are kids there aged from like 5 to 16 or 18. It’s so weird that they’re in school now even though it’s technically summer. They don’t really get a break. When we were walking around outside I got a little bit jealous of the really cool playgrounds (and yes, playgrounds. Plural.) that they have at the school. They also have this little driving track, that kind of looks like go-carts, but more realistic to a street. There are policia that teach the children how to drive at like age 8. Maybe 10. But still, take that Driver’s Ed. They need it though, the roads here are CRAZY. Which brings me to my next adventure: trying to find the “walmart”. A couple of us wondered over there after class and whenever we finally found it I literally must have walked around with my jaw dropped. This place is like a whole mall within a store. Absolutely zero exaggeration. Like I’m talking, there’s even a pet store, complete with real live animals in it. Speaking of animals, I’ve realized that everyone who has a dog here has a little dog. Possibly because most people live in apartments. The dogs even look different though. And they speak Spanish. Anyways, we walked around there and I was going to get a phone but who knew that you have to have your passport to do that because it’s my only valid form of identification here. I’m going back after siesta with some other girl who also needs to get one.

I got a little lost after we split walking home from the store. It’s because the streets here have like 5 or 6 different ways that they run so you can’t “just go straight” even though that’s what you need to do. There also aren’t visible street signs. They’re on the sides of the first building on the street. Sometimes. Luckily I figured it out before I walked more than a block or two out of my way. I worked on my homework a little bit and then lunch was ready about 2:30. They feast for lunch. I couldn’t eat it all. I also went to take my dishes to the sink after I ate and got fussed at. I think I can handle that. The adults here definitely like to cater to children. And by children, I mean anyone under the age of 25. I’m getting more comfortable in my poor Spanish skills. My brother and I have been communicating using spanglish, which seems to work somehow since we both only know parts of the other language. I’m also getting great at miming. My parents will correct me if I say something wrong and they can tell I get frustrated. I was trying to explain to them how we don’t really learn grammar and speaking, we just learn like vocabulary. Well my internet just went out but luckily I can save this as a word document to post later. I’m about to siesta; this might quickly become my favorite part of the Spanish culture.

What day is today even?

Well, today has been the longest day ever... I still haven't actually slept since boarding the plane in Wilmington and I'm pretty much delirious. We got to Atlanta and ate some food while we were waiting to connect to Madrid. They started boarding the flight an hour before take off. It was one of those planes with 3 rows across with 3 seats in each row. I slept for a little then woke up when they served dinner, which was basically a tastier lean cuisine and watched Tangled while I ate and then watched Country Strong and then I fell back asleep until breakfast. Then for the hour after breakfast was served I watched the little plane fly across the screen and get closer and closer to Madrid.

After we landed in Madrid, we passed through customs. I don't think the guy even looked to see if my face matched my passport. Then we found a little expresso place and jacked ourselves up on some Spanish coffee and pastries while we waited for the last two of our group getting here today to join us. Then we took the metro (and we had to switch lines like 4 times, fuck that shit, dude) and then we ended up near some park which is supposed to be like the central park in New York City equivalent in Madrid. And here's why switching lines on the metro sucks: you have to carry your 60+ lbs of luggage up and down like 3 flights of stairs. Each time you change. Between that and the walking that we did today, I better look like a supermodel when I wake up tomorrow. So we finally get to the place that we're going and we lock our bags into these cubby things at the train station right across the street from the park. Then we set out and explore for a few hours. There's only one train out to where we are so we had to wait for it to come at 3:30ish. We split up and Amanda, Kenzie and I went walking to the park. Up a fucking mile long steep hill. We get in the park and it's just more of an uphill climb so we stop over in the lawn and all 3 pass out for like an hour taking a little nap using our bookbags as a pillow. You have to remember that we're from flat, flat Wilmington. Whenever we all finally woke up we decided we were hungry and went to go get some food. We decided on some ham and cheese tortillas. And to all you people thinking like taco tortillas...wrong, these are like potato omlettes. We were going to order cerveza or vino but decided we'd never stay awake if we did.

Taking a nap in the park!

Jamon y queso tortilla!

We met back with everybody back at the train station and then got on the train to come out here. First I was so intrigued by the new scenery I was staring out the window, despite my serious lack of consciousness and the world around me and then eventually gave in and fell asleep like everyone else. Also, culture shock. This woman decided to breast feed her little baby on the train, and wasn't modest about it at all. AT ALL. I also noticed people don't really wear sandals and they think it's odd that we all had toe nail polish on. Anyways, so we get to the train station 4 hours later and our families start to come pick us up. I now know what it feels like to be a puppy in a pet store while you're just waiting for someone to pick you out.

My familia finally arrives and it's my padre and my brother. Madre was waiting at the apartment. They're very nice people but our ability to communicate effectively is seriously lacking. Madre already worries that I don't eat enough and I can tell she gets upset when I don't know what she's saying to me. I need to work on that. My brother is nice. He's 22 and done with college. He's learning English, so we're helping each other out. We went for a little walk around town after dinner so he could show me how to walk to school in the morning. It's nice that the whole town is very walkable and everyone is very friendly. I'm so glad that it's walkable because riding in a vehicle here is like teasing death. I've never seen so many crazy traffic circles and weird ways to get onto roads in my life.

Well, I can't even think straight anymore and my feet hurt and I still have to unpack all my things before I can sleep. Tomorrow we get to sleep in and class starts at 10 rather than 8 because we're just having orientation. I'm so thankful for that. Except I still have to get up and shower and eat breakfast before I leave. My family has wifi so I'll probably get to be online alot more than I thought I would. I have a million people that I have to skype, I feel like I need a sign up sheet! Well, it is now after midnight over here, which is weird because it's like 6 at home.

I'm leavin on a jet plane!

I'm sitting in the airport with two girls from my trip waiting for our departing flight to Atlanta. First of all, ILM is the smallest airport ever. I got my stuff out of the car, said goodbye, checked in, checked my bag, and went through security in about 15 minutes. I looked at my ticket and there wasn't a gate on it so I just walked down THE hallway...turns out there's only 4 gates in this airport. So now I'm here super early and I'm just chillin eating the sandwich I got myself for breakfast.

It hadn't really hit me until this morning that I'm actually leaving the country. I kind of mosied around while I packed last night and I hope I remembered all the essentials. I kept waking up during the night last night thinking of things that might happen or things I need to remember to put in my bag. Even this morning it didn't seem that real. As soon as I got past the security and sat down by myself I just started crying. Just like 3 tears. But still, so pathetic. I don't know if it's because I just saw the last familiar person to me for 5 weeks or just the fact that I'm going somewhere I've never been by myself. I guess I'm a little scared. I've never been in another country and I'm not feeling that good about my Spanish speaking. As much as I'm scared about it, I'm really excited too. I love new places and I know there's a whole world out there just waiting for us to arrive! We get in at 7:25am local time, which will seem like 2:30 in the morning to us. We have a nice little layover from the time we get in Madrid until when we can catch the train that we need to get to where we're going. We're going to store our bags and then go explore Madrid for a few hours! We won't get to our homes and new families until later that night and I'm pretty sure I'll be exhausted and will probably pass out for the night! Hopefully adjusting to the time change won't be too bad.

I may update in Atlanta, but chances are we'll be trying to collect all members of our group meeting up there and making our connecting flight. Therefore, the next time I do this blog thing may not be for a while, seeing at how I'm not sure when I'll have internet next. Just assume I've made it safe and sound. But just in case, I've registered with the US Embassy already online and they should be keeping tabs on me! The impatienceness is setting in hardcore, how I'm going to make it through a 2 hour flight and then a 9 hour flight is beyond me. Luckily the nice little hum of the plane engines usually does the trick and I should take a pretty solid nap. If not, I hope they're playing good movies on the flight!

Today is the day!

I leave for the airport in about an hour and a half. I'm starting to get a little nervous...hope I've packed everything! And by starting to get a little nervous, I'm freakin out.

Dos Terremotos! Ah!

So I thought I would check out the Spanish news and see what's going on there. Apparently there's been a couple of earthquakes in Lorca. Lorca is about 3 hours east of where I'll be. Eso no es bueno. Now I'm nervous. I live on the east coast in the US for a reason. We can see a hurricane forming, good luck trying to figure when there's an earthquake coming. I hope there's not any while I'm there! Trying to read the news in Spanish is also reminding me of how much of the language I've forgotten. Time to start praying to the spanish gods! I know once I'm submerged in it and it's my only choice I'll pick it back up, but for the first fews days I will definitely sound like an idiot. or una americana estupida. whatevs.

ONE WEEK!

In a week I will be on a plane on my way to Madrid...it's kind of nerve-wracking but mostly it's hard to contain my excitement! Gotta finish some last minute things here stateside and pack it all up, then I'll be on my way! Woooo hooooo!

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

Well it seems that everyone is Spanish today...er, well, atleast Mexican! Totally two different cultures! Given light of recent situations (Osama bin Laden being killed) there seems to be a severe increase in security abroad. So much that the U.S. Department of State decided to release this Worldwide Travel Alert. Faaannnnntasticcc. We had a meeting about our trip the other day and it went fairly well. There's 8 other people traveling with me so we'll get to know each other real well. I'm a little bit anxious to find out who my familia will be, I hope they like me! Ubeda is a really small town so I'm excited to experience that culture. It seems like we're going to have a lot of fun, between having classes and mixing with local Spainards who will be learning english from us as we learn spanish from them, and our afternoon and weekend excursions. I'm still super rusty on my spanish but I'm sure once I'm submerged in it I'll have no choice but to recall it! Back to studying for finals for me...less than 2 weeks until my plane takes off! Yay!

65 Million Dollars

Yep, that's around how much the British Royal Wedding cost. It was beautiful. Everything from Westminster Abbey to the loyal British folks waving their little flags around (well, maybe the people weren't beautiful, but the support they were giving was!) Literally, a wedding for a princess. You might be sensing a little jealousy in my voice (voice? er, writing?). You would be right. Princess Kate was drop-dead gorgeous in her wedding gown and you could just see the massive amount of love going on between her and Prince William. Now, you might be wondering what the royal wedding has to do with my trip to Spain. Well, let me tell you.

The week after my program ends I'll be headed to London for a week to see my friend Kate who will be studying abroad there. (And no, she's not the new princess.) I'm glad I decided to go even though it'll be a trek to get there. Wimbledon will be going on while I'm there and we're going to try to see Zac Brown Band and Kings of Leon in concert at Hyde Park since that'll be going on while I'm there as well. Honestly, the thing I think I'm most excited for is the English accent. Like let's be for real, who doesn't want to listen to that all day long? I also can't wait to pretend I'm in Harry Potter. Maybe I'll find the castle that is Hogwarts in the movies... OR maybe I'll find the real Hogwarts and get accepted! But for real, I'm so excited for London fundon after Spain!