Dicho y Hecho

Después de 9 meses en España, esta es mi última semana. En diciembre, prometí que escribiría mi último blog en español así que voy a intentarlo. Mucha gente que lea mi blog no lo va a entender pero me puede preguntar que dice. En fin, voy a reflexionar sobre mi tiempo aquí en el idioma del lugar.
Para empezar, no puedo creer que haya llegado el fin. Por un lado, siento que llegué ayer pero por otro lado me parece que muchas cosas del otoño pasaron hace años. Por ejemplo, no me parece verdad que Anja y Michelle estuvieran aquí solo hace 5 meses. Casi no recuerdo San Lorenzo con ellas. También, estuve en Ginebra en diciembre y visité muchos países en las vacaciones de Navidad. He hecho cosas este año que no hubiera imaginado que haría en todo mi vida. Por ejemplo ¡fui a Londres y a Granada sola! He estado en diez países nuevos en solo nueve meses y también he visitado muchas ciudades por España.
Voy a echar de menos bastantes cosas de España, muchas cosas me van a recordar a este país. Una cerveza al sol siempre va a saber como una caña en una terraza española. Me encanta que la gente aquí sea más tranquila y aproveche el tiempo libre. Echaré de menos los camareros en la Chistera, el café donde Emily y yo tomamos café todos los días.
Estoy encantada de haber conocido a todos los profes del cole. Las profes de inglés me ayudaron a acostumbrarme a España y al idioma. Además, ¿en qué otro pais saldría con profes de la edad de mi madre y me lo pasaría genial?
Doy gracias a Dios porque Emily trabajaba conmigo. Me ayudó a no volverme loca cuando estaba muy agobiada con los niños y con mi familia. Proveía un lugar donde refugiarme después de una dura semana. Estoy super agradecida también por toda la gente que me ha ayudado a aprender español. Nuria, María, Alfonso, Patricia, y Ana me han ayudado muchísimo y no podría hablar español ahora si no fuera por ellos.
El otro día, vi un vídeo que grabé la primera semana que estaba en la casa de Marina y no podía creer cuánto ha crecido Sally. Tampoco puedo creer cuánto ha cambiado todo. No somos las mismas personas que cuando llegué. Solo espero que la próxima au pair tenga más suerte que yo. Rezo para que Sally pueda aprender algún día a respetar la autoridad de la au pair así como la de su madre. Ser una au pair es una tarea dificilísima porque no tienes la autoridad. De todas formas, Sally es una chica inteligente y un día se va a dar cuenta de que es una niña especial y que eso conlleva mucha responsibilidad.Yo, por mi parte, hice lo que pude y espero que recuerde algunas de las lecciones en el futuro aunque ahora no le importe.
Sin embargo, durante un año tan difícil he aprendido y cambiado también. He adquirido mucha más paciencia y he aprendido como callarme cuando más falta hace. Espero poder conservar esas virtudes durante toda la vida porque son muy valiosas.
Al principio del año, creía que me encantaría vivir en el extranjero y que querría vivir fuera de los Estados Unidos muchos años pero, en realidad, lo he echado de menos demasiado. Me ha encantado conocer otra cultura e idioma pero también me gustan los míos propios. Los amigos de mi país se van a reír cuando les cuente que la gente aquí cree que soy tímida e insociable. Eso me suena ridículo pero es mucho más difícil conocer a la gente de verdad cuando, al principio, no puedes comunicarte bien. Cuando llegué, no podía ni hablar ni entender español. Después de seis meses cuando pude empezar a comunicarme, la gente ya ¨me conocía¨ y ya sabeís lo difícil que es reinventarte otra vez.
Sobretodo, me lo he pasado genial en España y ahora sé un idioma nuevo. Espero poder usarlo en Arizona y no perder demasiado vocabulario cuando regrese. Ahora, estoy buscando trabajo en hospitales donde pueda usar el español para ayudar.
Tengo muchas ganas de regresar y ver a mi familia, especialmente a mi sobrina que ya tiene dientes y puede gatear. Echaré de menos a Emily, a todos los profes y chavales y también mis clases de intercambio. Gracias a todos por aceptarme en vuestras vidas y espero volver a veros a vosotros y a vuestro país en el futuro.
Adiós España. Te echaré de menos.

Asturias

For my last vacation during my time in Spain, I went with the family to the north of Spain to the province of Asturias. Ever since I got to Spain, people have been telling me I have to see the north and that it´s the most beautiful part. But, I didn´t understand what could be so great about it...until I got there. We stayed in a pueblito called Salas, and the original point of the trip was because the Escolanía, or boys choir that William sings with, would be performing in the church there.  We spent the first day driving around, and I can honestly say I´ve never seen landscape more beautiful in my whole life. It was all mountainous and everything was covered in green.  The ´road´ was a winding path through the mountains that hardly seemed like a road at times and in many places we would have had trouble if another car came around the corner. For the first lunch, we had a stew called Pote which has chorizo in it which is a Spanish sausage. I´ve had chorizo before and never got the big deal, but apparently the Asturians know how to do it right and it was the most incredible chorizo I´ve ever, and probably will ever, have.

On Saturday, we drove around to other little villages along the coast and something very common in Asturias are the aldeas. Aldeas are basically groups of houses, but it´s too small to be considered a town and they don´t have like a town hall or anything. There will be towns that include all the outliers, but these people can literally live in the middle of nowhere and that´s saying a lot coming from a girl from northern Michigan. We spent a lot of time on Saturday wandering around Luarca, a town by the sea. The lunch we had there was awesome. It included: fried squids and a black paella. A black paella is black because they put squid ink in with the rice. It was absolutely delicious.  Our hotel in Salas was in like a little old castle. It had a little courtyard in the middle and was extremely accomodating after all of the hostels I´ve stayed in over the past year. I´d forgotten you can go places where they make your bed for you and provide a towel.  The concert on Saturday night was awesome. I teach about half the boys in the choir so they were excited to see that one of their teachers had come all that way to see them perform.  In class, when they´re acting up, it´s hard to remember that these boys sing like little angels. We had another amazing meal afterwards and we sat around with some of the other parents and it was just so fun for me to sit there and watch Spanish versions of my parents and their friends sit around in a restaurant having a good time. It reminded me of being home a lot with how loud it was and all the jokes flying around.

On Sunday, we went to Oviedo, which is an actual city. We happened to be there during the Artesan festival and all the people were dressed up in period clothing and selling food and goods at stalls around the old town. The boys had another mass to sing at in the afternoon so we went to that too. I came the realization that I´ve now been to several catholic masses including several in Spanish, two in Italian, and one in German, but I´ve never actually heard one in English. We had lunch at the marketplace and set out for the long drive home. I had an awesome time, and it´s definately a place I would go back to. Maybe someday I can do the Camino de Santiago. It´s a very famous hiking trail through that part of Spain and it can take months to finish depending on the trails you take and stuff. It sounds like it would be an incredible experience, especially being able to enjoy all that landscape in the north. 
I started saying goodbye to my classes at school because I´m done teaching on Wednesday. But, last Wednesday was the last class with one group of 4th graders because they´ll be on a field trip this week. One group of girls wrote me a song and sang it. Another boy was crying and we thought someone hit him. When we asked him what was wrong, his friend said he was crying because I´m leaving.  I thought it was a joke and I asked him to tell me what was wrong and he told me, ¨me da pena,¨ which means like, I feel bad or it makes me sad.  It was the saddest, cutest thing ever. Then the teacher got all choked up and I got all choked up. Saying goodbye to the kids is the hardest part. I´m really antsy, however, to get back to my house, family, and country. Although it´s sad to be starting with the goodbyes, I´m ready to start something new again.

Long Overdue

Hi Everyone, I have had more adventures since Easter, but I´ve been really uninspired in my blog writing so I kept puting it off. Now, I better just get writing or once experience just roles over into another, and I´ll end up forgetting everything.

At the beginning of May, I went with my friends, Tiffany and Emily, to the south of Spain for a long weekend. We rented a car and took off towards Cádiz, but, being a zillion hour drive, we needed a break so we spent the afternoon in Sevilla, and they just happened to be having their Flamenco Fairs that weekend. When we arrived, we walked around the old town and saw the cathedral (of course we did because this is Spain and city is not a city worth seeing if there isn´t an old cathedral :). As we walked around, there were tons of girls in flamenco dresses and we were just not getting it. We couldn´t understand how someone could look at themselves in those costumes and this they were the best option of things to wear. Well, that was until we actually went and observed the culture at the fair. It was incredible! We met up with one of Emily´s friends, an American who loves flamenco, and we watched the people clap and dance for hours and hours. I could have stayed all night. I just felt like I understood so much about people and cultures in general after watching something as simple as a bunch of Sevillana´s getting together to clap and dance. I worked on my clapping skills, and lets just say, it´ll take me years to perfect. Before going, I never liked to hear Sevillana music, but now I look forward to hearing a song here and there.
We drove off to Cádiz, and arrived at our hostal late that night. On Sunday, we rented bikes from the hostal and spent the day cruising the port city and just relaxing and eating some good food. One of the dishes we had was deep-fried little squids. It was not what we were expecting to get at all, but it turned out to be a good experience and pretty tasting. It was a little creepy though if you looked into their eyes too long before you ate it.  As we spent more time at the hostal, we got to know the characters around the joint.  They were some of the most weird, fun, hospitable and just outside-the-norm people I´ve ever met all smashed into one place. My favorite was Nacho. He was very stereotypically from Andalusia, and he just never stopped cracking jokes. We didn´t quite know what to think at first, but by the end of the trip we were won over by this craziness.

On Monday, we drove to the most southern point in Spain, Tarifa, and hopped on a ferry to AFRICA! We went to the Moroccan city of Tangier just for the day. After fighting through the sea-sickness for an hour or so we landed and started to explore the city. Let´s just say, I have never been more culture shocked in my life. I felt incredibly uncomfortable with the looks we were given by about every single person we passed. Emily, Tiffany, and I kept a very open conversation about our feelings, but it was not making me feel any better. I just had a steady, nervous sweat going for the first three hours or so. We found a little cafe with Moroccan tea overlooking the ocean, and it was the most incredible tea ever and super sugary.  It cost about 50 cents and we quickly learned how rich we were in that country. I asked for the bathroom after we finished out tea and just started laughing when I walked in. I guess I should have seen it coming, but I didn´t. It was a hole in the ground, literally. But, if any of you know how often I have to use the bathroom, I just sucked it up and made due. We went exploring the old city and testing out different baked goods and breads which were all incredible.  When we stopped for lunch, the people were so excited to have us they literally gave us enough food for about 6 people and we were only 3. I couldn´t walk at a normal pace for awhile after that. We explored all the markets and things around town. I loved seeing the huge piles of spices, but what I didn´t love so much was the meat and fish market. It was the most disgusting things ever.  There were just heads and random body parts hanging everywhere and smelling awful. But, again, it was a good experience. By the end of the day, we were ready to be back on Spanish soil, but I think everyone was happy to have been there and explored.
The last two days we spent on the beach which was not as awesome as we could have hoped for, but we made the most of it. We ended up eating dinner at the hostel one night, and we couldn´t have ended up with more funny stories after sharing the meal with two German guys, a British girl, and an Australian guy. I´m not sure if I´ve ever laughed more in my entire life. One of the German guys told us it would be his birthday at midnight so we all asked how to say Happy Birthday in German. Well after saying it all night and singing in an awful German-English version of the Happy Birthday song, we found out that what we´d been saying was actually, ¨We are truffels.¨ Feeling really dumb, but taking the joke well, we all asked each other why the Germans would tell us to say something so meaningless if you could have a bunch of dopey English speakers saying anything in your language. We never got the chance to ask because they´d already left the hostal by the time we figured it out.



It was great to get out for a weekend and enjoy another part of Spain. My weeks have been winding down here which is bitter sweet because I know I have a lot of Spanish left to learn, but I miss my States and niece so much that I need to get back. I can understand Spanish fluently, but I don´t have the opportunity to speak enough to consider myself fluent. I have the vocab; I just lack the necessity to speak it because everyone speaks English in my job situations.  Within a few days, I will post another blog to tell about this past weekend in Asturias, a province in Northern Spain. Until then... :)

Semana Santa in Roma!!

Ok, so, here we go! Nine days in Italy was the most incredible way to spend my Easter Week! The first hostel I stayed at in Rome was a hit, but at first I was a bit wary. When I arrived, I started walking (around dusk) to my hostel. I quickly noticed that I hadn´t seen a white person for a very long time, and I came to realize that I was in some sort of immigrant neighborhood and all the people walking on the sidewalks were you men in groups of two or three. Let´s just say in a brand-new city, with all my luggage, and being a girl, alone, its a little unnerving. I finally arrived to the hostel which was run by these Sri Lankan guys who were a little older. They luckily spoke English very well and after I payed and checked in, the man told me to follow the other man to my room. Well, as most hostels and hotels go, this would mean walking upstairs or down a hall or something, but the guy led me out to the street. I looked around kind of skeptically, assuming this is where he lead me down a dark alley to kill me and take all my stuff. However, as I´m still alive and typing this, he only led me to the building next door where they had several rooms. When I got inside and the people all seemed relatively normal, I unloaded my stuff and went to get some dinner. I walked as fast as I could to get to a more touristy area to find some food. I had started reading The Hunger Games Trilogy on the plane and was already hooked so I sat down at a nice restaurant, order some gniochi in a four cheese sauce and relaxed from a day of traveling. When I got back, I met the girls staying in my room and it was two German girls and a Japanese girl, and everyone was really nice.  We all ended up hanging out for awhile, and I realized how fast you can meet people and a trip alone does have to actually be a trip alone. It was a great start to the trip.

So, Sunday morning, I woke up early and was excited to see some things. It was almost nine in the morning and my first stop was none other than the Colosseum! I was pumped walking there and taking pictures along the way. I was going down some steps to get to the entrance and was taking some pictures. However, these steps weren´t marked well and separated by awkward distances so, while I was taking pictures, I bit the dust. It was the most embarrassing thing ever! I twisted my ankle so bad that I couldn´t stand up so I quickly sat on the step and pretended to look at the Colosseum as if I were just taking in the view, but really, it hurt so bad I was just trying no to cry. It started swelling almost immediately. Some paramedics strolled over and asked if I was doing ok. I quickly brushed them off, smiling and saying that o ya I was fine. They then asked if I could walk, and I sounded a lot more reassuring than I felt. After another ten minutes of sitting there looking like a dork, I sucked it up and shuffled to the Colosseum. You can now see pictures of the swelling timeline to give you a better idea. I´m sure it´s just what you always hoped to see. P.S. Excuse the dirt; the ruins areas I visited were very dusty.

I had downloaded several Rick Steves´ Travel Guides for the places I knew I would be going. I had one for the Colosseum, and it made everything around me so much more interesting. I then shuffled over to the Palatine and the Roman Forum. The Palatine is a neighborhood of ruins where the rich people of ancient times, such as Domitian, built their houses. The Roman Forum is the location of the ruins from the main market of the ancient city. The audioguide explained what used to be there, and it was incredible the things that were built that long ago. That city would be impressive now, and I wish it were still there to see it up and running.  Later in the afternoon, I visited the neighborhood of Trastevere, and I explored some churches, ate a great meal of the real pasta with carbonara and headed back to my hostel for some RICE for my ankle. 

The next day, I went to the Vatican. I was getting ready for the day and discussing my plans with the German girls and I met a new girl who was an American. She said that she also wanted to go to the Vatican and asked if she could tag along. She seemed a little quirky, but I thought, what the heck, why not? Well, this girl, I found out, had been in the peace corps in a little village in Africa for two years which was pretty cool. What was not cool was that she never, never, never, and did I mention never, stopped talking about it.  We met some really nice Australian ladies in line and I loved talking to them, but, as many of you know, I get really embarrassed for other people so when this other girl wouldn´t just shut up, I was dying. As we entered the Vatican, after waiting in line for a good hour, she burst out into song in her African language, and I almost dove into the bushes to avoid people staring. Don´t worry; I controlled myself and still attempted to make pleasant conversation. Just so you know, to get to the Sistine Chapel, you have to go through all of the Vatican museums which ends up being like a mile of museum walking and fighting the crowed who after about two rooms couldn´t really care less about the museum and just wants to get to the end. Well, my ear was about to fall off about 3/4 of the way through. I say my chance to escape. There was a bathroom and I was separated from the talking girl and the Australian ladies. So, I went to wait in the line for the bathroom slightly hiding behind a wall so that the passersby wouldn´t see me. However, within five minutes I hear a familiar voice screaming in my ear and asking if this was the bathroom line. She had found me. But, after I went into my stall I got out there as fast as I could and took off straight to the Sistine Chapel where thankfully there were huge crowds and it would be about impossible to find someone. I find a nice seat along the edge where I listened to Rick Steve´s explain the masterpieces in peace. I felt bad for the ditch, but then I remembered that I travel alone for a reason.  St. Paul´s Basilica is an amazing sight. It is the biggest cathedral in the world, but being so large it doesn´t have a single effect on the depths of its grandeur.  It´s actually designed to look not as big as it is so even though you know that the place is really big, it feels homey.  After leaving the vatican, I had some amazing pizza and gelato. Pizza, gelato and pasta were the obvious recurring themes of my week. Every ice cream flavor and every set of pizza toppings seemed to be the best I´d ever had, and pasta can never disappoint me.  Many times, I had more than one serving of gelato a day and I only tried the same flavor twice on the last day when, after having tried about a zillion flavors through the rest of the week, I knew my favorites.  Those consisted of...kiwi, chocolate mousse and nutella! When I got back to the hostel that night, the German girls asked how it went with the American at the Vatican. I explained the situation, and they both said they would´ve put money on the fact that I couldn´t handle her through the whole Vatican. They also ¨joked¨ that she was probably going to kill me in my sleep for ditching her. Luckily, when she arrived, we both discussed the size of those crowds and the difficulty of staying together. 
On Tuesday, I visited the catacombs outside of Rome where the Christians martyrs had been buried when burials weren´t allowed in the city walls. It was pretty interesting, but my favorite place of the day and what ended up being my usual hangout spot was the Trevi Fountain. I didn´t throw a coin in, however, because I heard those people are suckers and you´ve got to make your own luck in this world. :) Sorry that quote still gets me every time.
Wednesday morning, I hoped a train to Pisa where the weather was a little dreary, but I met with another Au Pair who lives in my town, Tiffany. I was waiting for her to arrive so I went for a jog, and luckily my ankle didn´t hurt at all. Despite what most tourist websites say, Pisa really only is good for seeing the tower. After you take a couple of pictures of the yourself pushing it over or holding it up, you´ve got the idea. However, as we were spending the night there, we had a great meal at a little Spaghetteria we found down a random little street and had a good ol´time.
Thursday, was the first day in Florence. We went to the Accademia Museum to see Michelangelo´s statue of David which is seriously impressive.  It´s absolutly huge and the detail of his body is incredible. We saw the outsides of all of Florences main churches, but we only stepped inside a few of them because many had entrance fees and, after Rome, I had seen enough churches for awhile. We decided to go to a random place on the map not knowing what it was, and we were pleasantly surprised to find it was an incredible plaza on top of hill from where you could see all of Florence. It just so happened to be about time for sunset and there were bands playing music so we just sat back and took in the incredible views and enjoyed some music.

Tiffany went to Rome on Friday, but I was still set to be there a couple of days longer. We went to an awesome food market and watched a booth making pasta in the back. It was packed with the locals and meat counters that leave little to the imagination as far as what the animal looked like before they killed it considering most of the heads were still on. Nevertheless, it was a really cool site to see. I spent awhile at a church in the afternoon because it was Good Friday, and there is really only so much sightseeing you can do in one week without some good long breaks. 
On Saturday, I knew I had seen enough of Florence, and if I didn´t do something exciting I would just end up sitting and doing nothing all day. I did the most touristy thing I´ve ever done, and I ended up really loving it. I went on a tour of Tuscany where you paid 55€ and they took you four different sites. Right away on the bus, I met this awesome lady named Stephanie from Salt Lake City and we hung out all day taking pictures and talking. She was traveling alont too so it worked out really well. We first went to San Gimignano which is a little walled city on a hill with AMAZING views of the Tuscan countryside. Everything you can imagine probably doesn´t add up to how beautiful it is especially being spring and all.  This little city had a bunch of towers from Medieval times when the rich families would compete for who had the tallest tower as a house.  They gave us an hour to walk around which was plenty because it was quite small. I bought a sandwich from a lady who was cutting the meat right off the pig butt. You don´t get any fresher than that I guess. It was awesome by the way.

The next stop was Siena and we went on a guided tour of that city because it was a bit bigger. I´ve found that places are so much more exciting when someone explains to you why you should care and look beyond just another building. After Siena, we went to a tiny little fortress on top of a hill. Only 50 people actually live there and it´s a fully walled city and again, being on a hill, had some amazing views. The last stop of the day was a farm in Chianti where we spent some time doing a wine tasting. I liked the cheese and olive oils the best though and it was super fun and something I never would have done on my own.  It was also a good chance to sit and talk to some really interesting people. Also, I forgot to mention, the tour was half in English and half in Spanish so they could get more people on one trip which was a little annoying at times because I felt like they kept repeating themselves. But, it provided an opportunity to speak some Spanish during my trip too. 

On Sunday, I went back to Rome because my flight home was from Rome but not until Monday.  I went to my hostel and no one was there. I was a bit frustrated at first because I had been walking for a really long time to get there, and when I called to ask them how I get inside the guy told me in really poor English that he was eating and I would have to wait an hour. I sat there for an hour in a tired and cranky mood since I just been on a train for four hours, but when they reminded me it was Easter and they went to eat with their families, I let it go and cheered up a bit. However, when I got inside this hostel I was a bit shocked. The bathroom was more like a camper bathroom and the toilet seat was so cracked it was almost non-existent, and it smelled so bad I could hardly breath. I later found out that smell was their offered shampoo scent.  But, the most shocking thing of all was their resident who was staying there for a couple of months. At first, I wondered if it he was supposed to be some kind of joke to get a reaction out of me, but later I realized he just liked to look that way. It was this Italian guy about the size of my little sister. He had thick, blond hair extentions stretching to his waist, and eyeliner covering his entire eyes from the sides of his hairline to the middle of his nasal bone. Also, the skin-tight leather jeans added to the ensamble. I wasn´t sure if he was trying to look like a cross-dresser or a rockstar or what. I got back to the hostel at around 7:30 because after eating pizza and gelato at the Trevi Fountain I didn´t have anything else to do so I thought I´d just read for awhile and then get to bed early. Well, I decided to make conversation with the really weird guy because the last thing you want in a hostel is the weird person to know that you think they´re weird because what if he was actually crazy and stole all my stuff because I looked at him weird or something. It turns out he is (in his own words) a rockstar, and moving to LA in a month or two to pursue his rockstar dreams. Unfortunately, he was staying in my room which also happened to be his prep room. He was starting to get ready to go out for the night. He came in the room with his shirt off to reveal all his tattoos. My favorite was probably the words Bon Jovi tattooed across his stomach over some really ugly design. He put the mirror in the middle of the room and proceeded with what is probably his nightly routine.  He did some arm excercises which aren´t really working for him followed by reapplication of his eyeline. I kid you not he stood there and shaved his chest in front of me then straighted his real hair follwed by brushing and untangling his hair extensions. He then changed to a new pair of tight leather pants (right in the middle of the room also) and pulled on his leather boots finishing it off with a thick cheetah print band around his forehead. This whole ¨transformation¨ took seriously two hours with his rock music blaring in the background. I´ve never seen anything like it in my life. I breathed huge sigh of relief when two French girls and two Polish guys came in and they were all pretty normal. 

It was an overall amazing trip, and I never stopped eating. It would be interesting to know how many calories I took in over the week, but even if I did know, I wouldn´t have given back one scoop of gelato. The spare tire is totally worth it and, with the family gone this week, I´ll probably lose it because I´m too lazy to cook. However, whipping up a batch of homemade cinnamon rolls was probably not a good start to Operation Bathing Suit Season.

Málaga

Last weekend was a holiday weekend in most of Spain for Father´s Day. So, Emily (my coworker) and I went to Málaga. We stayed at the Oasis Hostel which is another in a branch of hostels one of which I stayed at it Granada and loved. We took a six hour bus ride to get there, but the hostel was super modern and fun and had a great environment. We, however, had a crazy roommate at the hostel. He was an Englishman and came in the first night at 6 o´clock. Well, I guess that´s really morning, and he was swearing and talking to himself; he turned the lights on for about 20 minutes and was really angry and talking to himself about something he couldn´t find. Emily and I were both just laying there pretending to be sound asleep, but really I had to go to the bathroom super bad and was waiting for him to finally get in bed and fall asleep. The next morning we talked to our other roommate about the encounter and he was just as freaked out as us and was hoping he wouldn´t have to pull out the white knight act to save us females. Needless to say, we avoided that guy the rest of the weekend.
We got up early on Saturday and went to a nice beach outside of Málaga in a town called Fuengirola. We found out about this beach from my shoe saleswoman. Now, before this year, I never would have considered any one person my shoe salesperson, but I´ve already bought three pairs of shoes from her tiny little shop. They´ve got great shoes for cheap prices and the woman who runs it is from Uruguay and speaks amazing English. I know she´s an exceptional salewoman because she convinced me to buy this pair of shoes that I love but they weren´t even in my size. She explained to me how to take them home and stretch them out. It worked! She´s awesome. Anyways, she told us she lived in that area for 5 years so she knew right where to send us. We spent the whole day in the sun on the beach, and had an awesome lunch at one of the beachside restaurants.

It was fun to go to dinner that night and hang out with different people from the hostel. It´s always fun to meet cool people at the hostels. I´m hoping my trip to Italy next week will be pleasant where hostels are concerned. On Sunday, we went on a walking tour of the city which was good because without guidance we would have had absolutely no motivation to see the sights when the beach is so close by and tempting. Our tour guide, however, was a Canadian girl who´d been living in Málaga for two and a half years, yet somehow she was incapable of pronouncing anything in Spanish properly. She couldn´t even say the name of the city properly. How is that possible? How can you live in the same city two and a half years and not know what its called? Well, besides that the tour was fine as far as seeing the sights go. The cathedral (of course because we´re in Spain) was beautiful and the picture to the left is of the ruins of an ancient Roman amphitheater that was uncovered there. The Alcazaba is above the amphitheater and was a fortress for the Moorish castle that´s further up the hill.  We opted out of entering the main attractions because we wanted to sunbathe and sleep on the beach. But, the outsides were really awesome and the historical portion of town was really well kept. On, Monday we did a bit of light shopping before getting back on the bus for six hours. It's really not bad to take the buses in Spain because they're very affordable and they play movies. 



This is the last week of school before Semana Santa, aka Spring Break, when I will be spending 9 days in Italy traveling through Rome, Pisa, and Florence. I'm pretty sure I'll be going it alone, but I've got plans for keeping myself from going crazy inside of my own head for too long. I'll keep you updated on that trip. I've already got Rick Steve's audioguides downloaded to my iPod!

I Found You Miss New Bud-apest!

This past weekend, I went with Emily, who works with me at the school, and 13 of her friends to Hungary. It was a really short weekend, but we took advantage of the time we were there.  We all stayed in one large room in a hostel that was absolutely nasty. A teacher at school taught me the word ¨cutre¨ today and translated it means ¨cheap and nasty¨ which is the best description of this place, but for two nights and a total of 13€, I can handle just about anything.  We spent all morning Saturday walking around. We first went to the marketplace which was fun and had some breakfast there.  There was a church built into a cave in the side of the mountain which was pretty neat to see. It had been restored from its original after it was shut down during the Communist reign.  There was a trail leading up the mountain so we started walking because we heard there was a great view higher up. What I didn´t realize when we started was that we would, in fact, be climbing an entire mountain.  However strongly my gluteals burned, it was worth it because we got such an incredible view. After our morning hike, we strolled along the Danube toward the Buda Palace which is not like Buda Buda the fat guy, but in reference to when the city of Budapest used to be made up of the two separate cities of Buda and Pest. The Parliament building was amazing and we saw it from across the Danube.
 The architecture of the city was breathtaking and luckily gave more of the impression from the Imperial days than the communist ones. We didn´t go into many historical buildings because of the time constraint, but everything was so gorgeous from outside, we didn´t really care.  We ate a very Spanish lunch; meaning, we had lunch at about 3:30 and it lasted for about an hour and a half, but after walking for so many hours it was nice to relax and we found a some great sit down restaurants for cheap prices. It took awhile to get used to the currency because for example when I exchanged 60€, I got 15,000 forints. We ended up figuring about a 300-1 comparison which messes with your head for awhile.  The evening we spent at the Thermal Baths which was so much fun.  It consisted of something like 15 pools which are really giant hot tubs inside and out. One of them had jets that made a whirlpool, and we played in it like little kids for hours.  That was probably the most fun part! Again, being with Spaniards, we ate at a late time for dinner. I think we finished at about 12:30 at night of course. But, it was good to spend a lot of time over a meal because when you´re traveling alone, it´s a bit awkward to spend a lot of time eating. On Sunday, we had Hungarian style breakfasts which was sausage with scrambled eggs and cheese and loaded with onions. We spent some more time walking around and seeing churches and sculptures and the pretty things of the city.  Our flight was at four, and we hadn´t slept much over the weekend so it´s a good thing we didn´t take off much later or I might not have made it. 
It was a nice change to go on a trip with a bunch of people after a couple of solo trips. This weekend, Emily and I are going to Malaga in the south to soak up the sun so it´s going to be a good couple of weekends. Grampa is in the hospital so keep praying! Thanks!

Granada y La Alhambra

Solo Vaction No. 2! This weekend I hopped on a bus and went to Granada. It´s a five hour bus ride, and Granada is located in the south of Spain.  I stayed at a hostel again as I did in London. However, this hostel was a whole different story. It was AMAZING! I had such a good time. First of all, I stayed in a girl´s room this time which turned out to be really cool because most girls who would request a girls only room are travelling alone which means they´re more likely to talk to the random people they´re staying in a room with. I met some really cool people and we ended up going out to dinner together and hitting up a flamenco show which was an incredible experience.  On Saturday, I went to the Alhambra which is an Arabic Castle that remains fully intact since the time of the Moorish Empire. On my hike up to the castle, I asked a girl to take a picture for me and I found out she was from Tennessee. I asked if she was also traveling alone, you know, just making small talk, and she said she came with her boyfriend then busted out in tears and said he just dumped her and left her at a restaurant and got on a bus back to their university.  I gave her a hug, and she kept me company while I explored the castle for awhile.  I had a really fun time listening to people this weekend. You´d be surprised the thing strangers will tell you if you just listen to them.  In the palace, you can only go during your half hour slot in an attempt to preserve it because only so many people can enter per day.  I´ve never seen a more incredible display of architure. I learned later all the details of the walls are different Arabic poems the pretty much decribe the beauty of the palace.  The detail was simply breathtaking.  The gardens went on forever and led to a country palace which is just a little bit farther up the hill from the city. From about every spot at the Alhambra, you can get a great view of the entire city of Granada.
 I got to see a far off look of the Alhambra from the Mirador de San Nicolas which is a very famous overlook where Bill Clinton, apparently, said he saw the most beautiful sunset in the world.  I wasn´t there in the evening because I could hardly walk anymore, but I bet it´s incredible.
Granada is also famous for it´s tapas which are basically a free ¨snack¨ with a drink order. So, for lunch on Saturday I went around to a couple of tapas bars and got a juiced wine for 2€ then they brought out a big sandwhich for me at one place for free and at another place they brought me meat on a stick with a bunch of fries.  The concept just seems so friendly to me. For dinner, as I said before, I went with a girl that I met, who is from Indiana, to an Arabic restaurant where I had the best food ever! The flamenco show was a little later at night, and by the time I went to bed I was absolutely exhausted. It was a day of doing a lot of typical things from the city of Granada, and it had a great addition of sunshine to add to the already really relaxing and friendly atmosphere.

The following morning, I went on a walking tour that the hostel provides for free through the Albaycín neighborhood which is the original Moorish city. I had walked through it on Saturday, but didn´t really know what I was looking at, but this girl gave us a whole history lesson of the city and it was incredible.  The girl from Indiana came with me to lunch, again Middle Eastern food. I had a really good time meeting new people and hearing a bit about their lives and where they´re from and why they´re there. Having such a pleasant time in this city just made me more excited for more visits throughout Spain.

London Calling

So, it´s true! I got to go to London! Everyone in Spain talks about how awesome London is so I really had to see it for myself. I went alone last friday through Monday to the beautiful city. I stayed at a hostal which was a very strange experience. When I got in there on Friday night, there were two French people and four Spanish girls. I was already exhausted from quite a bit of walking throughout the day so I went to bed when the Spanish girls were just going out for dinner.  After dozing off for an hour or two, an elderly gentleman entered the room and announced quite loudly, ´I guess this is the last one!¨ He said this in reference to the one bunk on top of mine. After scurrying around for about 20 minutes to get situated, I felt my bed begin to shake as he started to climb the ladder, but being quite elderly, this took him awhile. As he was about in the center of the ladder, all of the Spanish girls burst in and busted out laughing. I opened my eyes to see what was so funny, and this poor guy was in the middle of the ladder in his boxer briefs. I was quite tramatized, and I felt bad for the fella. I´m sure he hadn´t counted on a bunch of young girls coming in right when he was in his undies. This was an interesting first night, and one I wished had not been spent alone with a bunch of strangers. 
On Saturday, I had bought a London Pass which meant I could get into many attractions and all forms of public transport without additional payments. The pass was kind of expensive: 54 pounds. But, I figured out where I wanted to go so I could get the most for my money, and I ended up spending 110 pounds so it was worth it. I went to St. Paul´s Cathedral which was really nice to get a tour of a protestant church and then right after I went to Westminister Abbey so I could directly compare to a catholic church.  St. Paul´s was really awesome. Their audioguide was really good, and the history of the church is really interested. When I took the double-decker bus to Westminister, I got to see Trafalgar Square and then of course Big Ben, Parliament, and the London Eye are right there as well. Big Ben and Parliament was of course really cool because we get to see it in the movies all the time so being there feels a lot cooler. I then took another double-decker to the Tower of London which is an old fort that holds a lot of history as well as the crown jewels which were AMAZING!  I then went to the top of the Tower Bridge which was great because it gave me a great view of the city on either side of the Thames River.  Next stop was the Globe Theater which is a remake of the theater where Shakespeare´s plays were originally shown.  This was a nice tour and something I wouldn´t have gone to see without my London pass so I´m glad I saw it.  I went to the Millenium Bridge on my way to Tate Modern Museum. This museum was great and even though I could hardly stand by the time I got there, their audioguide made it really interesting.  Sometimes modern art is hard to get, but when you have a good description from the artist of what they would like to convey to you through the scene, it all starts to make sense.  When I made it outside, the earth was suddenly COVERED in snow. Apparently, it had started right after I went inside, and it continued to dump well into the night. This was a nice taste of the Michigan winter I, somehow, had been missing.  Needless to say, I collapsed in bed that night. It was only about 8 o´clock so I figured I´d read for a couple of hours, but in reality, I couldn´t keep my eyes open for more than 10 minutes after I layed down.  That night at the hostal, I was joined in my room again by the two French people. Then, at about 1 in the morning, a group of people speaking some eastern European language came in and got all settled. Again, a night with many interuptions, but when it´s so cheap, you get what you pay for.
On Sunday, I went back to Big Ben to see the view from across the river which is the one more commonly recognized and I walked to Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, Prince Harry did not see me standing among the crowd or I´m sure he would have come bursting out of the palace to try and woo me.  However, that didn´t put a damper on my day. The palace was beautiful along with the park it´s set in.  I then walked to the Victoria and Albert Museum. I had extremely misjudged the distance so I walked at a rapid pace for almost an hour to get there. I only spent about 45 minutes inside because I had to rest.  I then went to the Natural History Museum and later took a bus to the British Museum. The British Museum was my favorite because I love to see all of the things collected from Ancient Egypt including the Rosetta Stone which is a giant slab of rock in which is engraved a speech by a ancient pharoah in three languages giving scientists the tools they needed finally translate Egyptian hieroglyphics. They also have a lot of mummies. I think a scene from The Mummy Returns was supposed to based there.  Anyways, after three museums and hours of walking I had seen as much of the city as I could.  That night I was alone at the hostal which was great because I had to get up at 4 am to catch my plane.
For those of you that don´t know, traveling within the EU is really easy. You don´t even have to go through customs when you land...for countries that are a part of the Schengan Agreement.  However, I didn´t know that England is not so I was a little surprised to have to go through customs when I came back from London. Well, you know how when you´re near the end of the line on a full flight they take your hand luggage because there isn´t enough room in the overhead bin? Well, they took mine which is no big deal in itself, but when I got to customs luckily I had my passport in my pocket. I gave it to the man and chatted with him for a few seconds before he told my visa says I needed to be out of Spain in December. He spoke only Spanish, by the way.  I was a little surprised, but quickly remembered that it´s completely fine because I have my NIE which is my Spanish ID which approves me to be here until the end of June. He said, ´O good, may I see your NIE then?¨ Well, I had completely forgotten they took my hand luggage which contained my wallet with my ID. He announced to me this would be a 400€ fine to enter the country. I was really flustered and panicked and trying to speak really quickly in Spanish to explain myself.  He finally caved because I´m a student and it´s my first time forgetting. Luckily, I slipped through without a fine, and I will be careful not to make this mistake again. 400€?! That´s about 3 more trips to London right there! Thank goodness I didn´t have to pay it.  It was a great trip, overall. I wish I could´ve shared it with someone, but had a great time regardless. I´m hoping to get a couple of trips within Spain into my itinerary into the next couple of weeks.

A Couple Weeks of Normalcy

Hey Everyone! I haven´t gone anywhere crazy or exciting in the last couple weeks so I thought I´d give you a little update on the normal stuff.  I´ve been focusing a lot on motivating myself for my Spanish conversation classes because, in the last month, I´ve noticed the increasing gap between my level of speaking and my level of understanding. It´s really good to see my understanding increase so much, but I would also like to get my speaking up to the same level.  This means I need to get myself out of bed on my day off and get to classes with the Spaniards.

This weekend I took a class in a nearby town for Primeros Auxilios Básicos (a.k.a. First Aid). I was a little nervous because how embarrassing would it be if I couldn´t understand enough of the Spanish to pass the class, but I understood no problem. Most medical terms are really similar to where even if you haven´t heard the word in Spanish before you can figure out what it is if you´ve heard the word in English.  It was a lot of fun to be in an environment where only Spanish was spoken. I did have a major headache after each day of listening to five hours of Spanish straight. 

Things are going great at the school. I really enjoy my coworkers and hanging out with the kids. I find I appreciate kids the more time I spend at the school. Today, I went with the 3rd graders to be the female chaperone at the pool.  It was fun to get a change of pace.  Sally is still rocking and giving me different reasons to laugh. Today, there was a bit of drama because she was telling me a story and suddenly saw a bunch of bird poop on a car and she said, ¨Hey look! How gross!¨ But, before I could even think of what I was about to say, I said, ¨Like your face!¨ Well, Sally is a very sensitive soul, and this statement was taken quite literally. Even after my apologies and great attempt at convincing her it was a joke, she ran to her mom and told her I said that her face looked like bird poop.  This was a sloppy mistake on my part.  Anyways, we made peace, and I braided her hair as seen above.  She loves to get it braided and wear it to school like that one day then let it out the next morning so her hair is big and crimpy. What can I say? It´s the dream of every little girl with straight hair.


Weeks are pretty draining because I teach all day, then I´m with Sally until after 9. The weekends have been spent hanging out with friends and practicing my Spanish.  This weekend I´m going to London so I´m sure I´ll write a new update with pictures sometime next week. Miss you all, and God bless!

Feliz Año

Hey Everyone! I can´t believe Christmas break is already over. It went by so fast and so much happened.  Let´s see, where did I leave off on my vacation update?  O ya, Anja´s family! Well, the Prograjsek family was amazing. They never stopped feeding us from the time we got there until long after we were out the door. They sent along bags of fresh and dried apples to tie us over on the train ride.  Anja took us on a tour of her town (that took about 5 minutes.) and gave us a tour of the farm complete with all apple products and different grains. We loved it! From Slovenia, we went to Vienna on train which was much nicer than the scary van ride we had take to get to Anja´s. 

From the moment we stepped off the train, Patrick, my Austrian friend who was an exchange student in Mio several years ago, was there waiting for us with transportation tickets all ready to go. He took us to his house right away and his mom had a wonderful lunch waiting for us which was amazing. The food we ate in Austria was so awesome, I can really only use my food experience in Slovenia to describe how much I liked it.  He even had the kitchen stocked with American food for me such as Doritos, Kisses, and Poptarts. With Patrick we never had to lift a finger; he had everything planned and organized. But, we did have to lift our feet. I don´t think I could have taken another step by the time I went to bed each night. He took to see all the major buildings of the city which, in Vienna, is a lot. We got a full tour of Schonbrunn Palace, Hofburg Palace, and the famous Opera.  It was such a treat! I´ve decided Vienna was my favorite city on the tour, and I´m not just saying that because I know Patrick will read this blog. :)
The next stop was Germany for New Years. We went to Dusseldorf to hang out with a guy we knew from MSU.  When we went to the Rhine to watch the fireworks after the countdown, I was shocked.  Can I just say, I´m sticking with my beliefs that people under the influence of alcohol should not be allowed to operate fireworks. I had a mix of, Wow this is awesome to see so many fireworks, with, O MY GOODNESS! PLEASE DON´T BURN MY HAIR OFF! There were people everywhere just lighting off fireworks in every direction which may or may not have been pointed directly at the sky.  I´ve really never seen anything like it especially because the last ten New Years Eve parties were spent at my parents house where explosives were not involved.

My favorite thing in Germany, however, was that there is a chocolate factory in Aachen! It was a Lindt factory, which, yes, is Swiss and has headquarters in Zurich, but this is a branch. If you know me very well, you know that I eat chocolate like nobody´s business. I was so excited I was like...hmm...I guess the only way to describe it was that I was like ME at a chocolate factory. I think I left with about 5 or 6lbs. of chocolate for about 10€. 

From Germany, we carpooled to Paris. At this point, I was pretty burned out, but I wanted to make sure Esteban saw all the main attractions of Paris such as the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and Notre Dame. But in addition, because I did all of these things on my first trip to Paris, we went to see the palace at Versailles which (I´m sorry Patrick) was even more magnificent than the Schonbrunn palace in Vienna.  Also, we went to Montmarte which I never heard of before this trip, but is a Must See spot in Paris. It was interesting how we finally got there because the directions we had initially been given took us to the Moulin Rouge neighborhood and you could easily say Moulin Rouge was the classiest joint on the block. We quickly left that part of town and found Montmartre the next day.  It was magnificent and overlooked almost the entire city, also it turned out to be better that we couldn´t find it the first time because when we went the sky had finally cleared up and it was a gorgeous day to get the full effect of the view. 

We finally dragged ourselves back to Madrid on Friday night and spent all day Saturday recovering.  Sunday was spent around Madrid at the famous street market, and let´s just say, I´m not fully recovered from all the walking and exploring of cities. I´m back at school and happy to see everyone. My Spanish definitely improved over the vacation from talking a lot with Esteban in Spanish. I´m getting more comfortable with it everyday. After dealing with the Parisians, who were much more rude that last time unfortunately, I´m was really excited to get back to a country where I can communicate with people in their own language.  It was a great tour, and I can´t believe how smooth it was. Luckily, all the planning payed off and we didn´t have any problems with transportation delays or cancellations.  Now, with the New Year, I´m going to have to work hard at my resolution to become fluent in Spanish, and I need to get on the boat with my plans for med school this summer. Happy New Years everybody! I hope it´s a great one!