Our Portugal Trip-Lisbon
Kristin, Lynsey, Alli, and I in Lisbon, Portugal
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
I love Segovia!
I really loved Segovia!! What I liked most about it when we got there in the gift shop there was pig stuff everywhere! Some people know this, but I LOVE pigs, especially piglets!!! So I was really excited to see that they had a bunch of stuff in the gift shops and on the street that were related to pigs. I even bought a little stuffed animal pig holding a heart that reads ‘Segovia.’ The reason for so many pigs however is that Segovia is famous for its pig dishes, especially cuchinillos or baby piglets. This, I do not like. But I still got a good souvenir from there for myself so that’s good J.
Our bus left at 9:30 for Segovia and it was only about an hour and a half drive, it went by really fast. And the bus was really nice! It was higher off the ground than the coach buses in the US and these had seat belts too and handles on the back of the chairs, for what…I really don’t know but they were very comfortable!
When we first approached Segovia, our buses stopped right in front of the Aqueduct! It was built by the Romans around 2,000 years ago and there is nothing holding it together except gravity…just rock on top of rock. It was pretty impressive. Our tour guide for the day was my art teacher, Ivan and he told us a story/fable about the Aqueduct. It goes something like this: one girl’s job was to fetch and carry water every day to the village. Tired of this job, she made a deal with the devil to bring the water to the people for her soul. Thus, the devil made the aqueduct and took the girl’s soul as well or something a long these lines.
Ivan also told us a fabled story about these mountains that appear to be in the shape of a women sleeping and it’s called La Mujer Muerta or in English, The Sleeping Lady or The Dead Woman. There are several legends about this mountain but the one Ivan told us was like this: This version recounts the struggles for leadership that were two brothers, sons of the recently deceased head of a tribe living in the then vast plateau. The mother of two, did not want to see this fratricidal struggle, offered his life to the gods in exchange for peace for their children and well kept.. After a big storm, appeared the mother's body as a great mountain, an image which the children recognized and immediately stopped the fight.
Throughout the day, we walked around looking at other historical places. We stopped by a house titled, La Casa de Picos or The House of Peaks, which has 365 peaks sticking out of the house. Houses owned by rich people would have unique patterns on the outside walls of the buildings to distinguish this wealth. We stopped around 12:30 pm to take a break and to eat lunch. Our host-mom had made us a sandwich with scrambled eggs and chorizo, which is a type of sausage and is very, very good. We had this long with a banana, mandarin, and water. It was very good.
After Lunch, a group of us went to this beautiful Cathedral for only 3 euros. I really loved the outside of it as well but in the inside was worth a look at too. It amazes me how tall Cathedrals are. At this one, they had this huge doors like in the Hogwarts castle in Harry Potter that almost reached the ceiling. In some rooms, we couldn’t take pictures because they were full with hanging tapestries that are very old and fragile. If we did take pictures in there, we would be fined 50 euro or 75.75 dollars anyways.
After visiting the Cathedral, we did a little walking and I stopped at a store to buy my pig with the Segovia heart, postcards, and something for my sister. We found an area with a good view of the Alcazar Castle and a beautiful forest landscape and decided to take pictures. Then we stopped at a Café/Bar for some ice cream-I got a lemon-lime freeze pop thing and it was only a euro! Lately in Spain it has been really dreary with rainy, cold, and windy weather but the weather in Segovia was perfect!! It was like early April in Wisconsin! It was especially a really nice surprise because the predicted weather for that day was rain and snow. It did rain a little bit but it wasn’t bad at all.
Our group met back at 3pm then to call to the Alcazar. This is the castle that inspired Walt Disney to create the castle that’s always shown at the beginning of the Disney movies. We couldn’t go to all of the rooms in the castle of course but we did get to see a lot of history including the thrones of the king and queen and we got to go up the stairs to the lookout on the castle. The view was AMAZING!!! We wanted to stay up there longer but needed to get going to the buses as well.
The bus ride home was pretty uneventful. I was exhausted mentally and physically from the day so I just decided to tune out everything and listen to my iPod. We got back around 7PM and then had pizza and salad for dinner around 9 PM. After dinner we decided to go out with our usual group to Café La Banque at the Plaza Mayor for some churros and hot chocolate. It hit the spot! The chocolate was not as thick as last time but it was still really good!! The restaurant was really warm and that along with the small of cigarette smoke and being initially tired was making me really sleepy. We stayed and talked for about an hour and a half, called it a night and left for home.
While we were walking back something really weird happened. Kaitlyn and I were waiting for the Green Pedestrian symbol to walk across the street when these two boys around high school age walked across before our ‘go’ light since there were not many cars around. They were walking right towards us so we both tried to move out of the way for them but one of the boys with short curly hair and piercings. But instead of continuing to walk, he stopped right in front of me and said in Spanish, “Do you remember me? Do you remember me?” I told him “no” each time and finally we were able to walk across and he said, “Well…see you later!” It was really weird but I figured either 1) He was drinking 2) He confused me with some other American girl or 3) He just wanted to bug me.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Photos!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/46863534@N02/?saved=1
my username is the same-Bryantlm19
Friday, January 22, 2010
Rain, Rain go away, and come back another day
I am really sick of the weather, it’s always gloomy here. I keep being told that Valladolid is the city of sun…so far there has only been about 2 or so good days of sun and weather. Last summer in Valladolid it only rained once! Today it was suppose to rain as it always does but it hasn’t yet so far! Here we wash our clothes every week or so and last time I used and indoor clothes line but that is being used. Instead from the second story I hung my clothes outside today on this gloomy day. Back home we have a clothes line, but it’s not so high up where I would be worried about birds hanging out around it or the wind sweeping it all away…but it’s not too windy out so I guess it is not that bad.
This week once again went by so fast! Mainly because it was a little stressful. In February, we have Carnaval or Mardi Gras which means we have Monday and Tuesday off as well! So this week-Kara, Kristin, the two Adams-B and S, Ken, Kaitlyn, Eric, and I got together to plan a 2-city trip to Granada and then Cadiz in Southern Spain. We heard that Cadiz is one of the top Caranaval places in Spain so it should be fun! We were told by Alejandro this week that we’re suppose to dress up in costumes for Carnaval so we’ll have to plan for that…probably just some funky glasses and jewelry…just cheap stuff.
The planning for this trip was quite stressful. We had to plan planes (no trains) and automobiles for transportation and then hotels as well. After a lot of stress with credit cards-some banks failed to remember that some people would be in Europe using their cards, some reached a credit limit or certain amount left in their debit account, and some purchases a normal credit card did not work…for example, my credit card didn’t work to buy a buss ticket but a MASTERCARD Credit card did work.
One night, instead of heading to the school to work on this trip as we had before after class, we went to a pizza place called Pizza Movil or something where they had free Wi-Fi. After ordering some food (I got an Orange Fanta that included juice and then split a mini cream thing with Kristin), we turned on our laptops only to discover that their internet system was down! So even though the food was good, it was kind of a waste for us. Eventually everything got settled out and the 8 of us will be in Granada and then Cadiz for Carnaval!!!
Walking around the city has been so tiring too! So far it’s really only the exercise I’ve been getting so I don’t really mind it that much but once in a while I feel like I’ve pulled something or it just plainly hurts. I’m just have to stretch or something. However, I am working on getting a pass to a gym where they have a pool and Belen and I are planning on swimming on Sunday! The place is only like 20 minutes of walking away from my house too so that will be really nice!
This week there are 3 birthdays amongst the UW-Eau Claire and UW-Steven’s Point students here so to celebrate the owner of Sotabanco bought cakes for the students to eat last night. It was really good, it was vanilla cake with vanilla frosting and a raspberry filling. Tomorrow we have an excursion to Segovia for the day! I’m really excited to go and see more of Spain!
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Time Flys By
It’s really hard to believe that I have been here for a week already! It has gone by so fast…my Spanish speaking skills have started to get better and I’m hoping they’ll only get better. In Spain it is very normal to stay up as late as 7 am in the morning. On Friday night the group I was with stayed out much later than I am use to but it was ok because I was with a big group of girls and guys so the guys were somewhat our bodyguards and walked us back so that we would be ok. There were a lot of people out so it wasn’t like anybody around was completely by himself or herself either. Just part of the culture here-our host mom stayed out till 3 am.
The next day we got up at 11 or so, quickly ate breakfast and went out to go shopping at 12ish. We first went to a store called La Corte Ingles which is kind of like a Macys and I bought a pair of earrings. The store is very tall with 7 floors in all. Next we went to a store titled Pimkie and I bought a nice striped shirt for only 9.95 euro and was originally 22.95 euro. In Spain in January and July all of the stores have a major sales event titled ‘Rebajas.’ So now is the time for me to shop, I really want to buy a nice pair of boots because a lot of people here wear them and I will be able to fit in more with them. With all the rain we have been having I’ve only been wearing the shoes that I wear in the winter for the snow-they’re boots but short like normal shoes. They’re comfy and have been good for walking around in.
Shoes are a huge give a way for being American. Wearing running/tennis shoes but not actually running? They know you’re American. Wearing flip flops while everything else is wearing normal shoes? You’re American. Kind of the same with coats, it’s a give a way if you’re wearing an American type jacket like North Face or Columbia…it’s best to wear a cloth coat like an Overcoat or Pea coat. It’s also a give away if you’re not wearing a winter jacket at all right now and just a sweatshirt or something else (Adam S.).
After shopping we went back to our host-mom’s house and the food was amazing as usual. I really want to buy a Spanish cook book while I am here. Today for lunch we had chicken and potatoes that a garlic sauce that also tasted like it had some lime in it. It was so good! She told us that she had invented the sauce herself and that she had other recipes that she had created…I’ll have to make sure to get those recipes before I leave!
Later we left to go to Kara and Kristin’s house and then to walk to Adam S. and Eric’s house to meet up. They live right by the school, which is about an hour walk from our house. Needless to say we were very tired by the time we arrived in that area. We went to a store called Carrefour which is basically just like our Walmarts except not open 24 hours and they have McDonald’s there instead of Subway (there are Subways in Spain however). While we were shopping around I was completely tired so I bought an Aquafina to wake me up (I must have been dehydrated because the water really helped). I also needed to buy some Kleenex for my cold (I was only using the travel-sized packets) and I wanted to buy some full bottles of Shampoo and Conditioner (once again only had travel size to use). They had some familiar American brands like Herbal Essence and then some brands I had never heard of before. I went with the familiar Herbal Essence.
My total of water, Kleenex, and Herbal Essence came to 8.77 euros which was pricey but I didn’t mind. I paid for my items and I was expecting someone to be there to bag my items or at least some sort of bagging but there was nothing! Turns out I was suppose to grab a plastic bag at the beginning of the line and pay 10 eurocent for it. I gave my roommate Kaitlyn the money and she went back and purchased one for me. I still can’t believe people have to pay for plastic bags here. I’m pretty sure I read or heard of this before but had completely forgot about it. Also, turns out that if a person wants to use a shopping cart, they have to pay a fee for that too!
Since I was tired and ill still I decided not to stay out so late and get to bed early after calling home first. I woke up this morning around 9:45-10ish to get ready for Church. Kara, Kristin, Kaitlyn, and I had decided to go but we hadn’t talked about which church to go to. In my scramble to get ready this morning for the service at 11 we hadn’t communicated about which church to meet at. Kaitlyn and I had figured that it was going to be at a place near their house but we weren’t sure which one-there are so many churches in Valladolid. We saw a church that people were entering and decided to go there since we had missed our time to meet Kara and Kristin at 10:45. It was a grand church and when we entered the building there was first a large spacious area where a couple of people were sitting on folding chairs. In this area people stayed with their young children as well. It was very dark inside with little light and today was cloudy so there wasn’t a lot of natural light available. Further inside were the pews and by luck we found Kara and Kristin sitting in one of the last pews. The service was very short compared to what I am use to. It was only 20-30 min. with Communion but there wasn’t much singing at all. We were a little late so we might have missed it though.
After church we met up with Adam S. and Eric in the plaza mayor and we wanted to go to the weekend market called Mercadillo at the futbol stadium but it is a very long walk there past our house and we were not sure which bus we were suppose to take so just decided to walk around a bit and explore the city. We found the Christopher Columbus museum but it was going to be closing soon for the Siesta or break time. Instead we took pictures of the outside of the building. Next we went to the Campo Grande and walked in further.
We saw our peacock again as wells as one that was all white-perhaps albino? We also found a pond area with ducks and geese. Through the trees we also spotted three kittens that almost seemed to be protected by the geese. I was quite worried about them but they looked like they were a couple of weeks old and later on our walk we saw a slightly larger kitten so I figured they just must live in that area ok. We also spotted a water fall and then a grand water fountain with a large geese or swan spreading its wings on top and then mermaids holding fish that spouted water.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Communication Is Key
The next day, Thursday, was quite the adventure too. In the morning, the wind woke me up-it was so strong. I knew I would want to use my hair dryer because it would be so cold out. After I showered and dressed I plugged in my converter and then my new mini Wal-Mart hair dryer for $12 into the converter. I turned it on high and began to blow dry my hair. Looking back I probably should have first tried it on low or could have used my adapter as two people now have told…make that 3 people. While I was drying my hair I noticed that the hair dryer was really quite strong like it was when I tried it out in the US but something seemed wrong…I looked down the barrel of the hair dryer and it was glowing bright orange as if flames were about to coming shooting out of it. I immediately turned it off but too late…I had fried my new $12 hair dryer and I am planning on buying a new one even though it will be with a Spanish plug.
The day before we had arrived a little late for class but it was ok because it is normal to be late in Spain and when I had gotten to the school, even though it was past 9:30, class hadn’t started yet. That windy Thursday morning however I did not have class at 9:30 but I had thought that Kaitlyn did. As we were walking from the bus stop to the school I asked Kaitlyn why she wasn’t walking fast to school as I had the day before since we were also running ‘late’ that morning. She simply told me that she didn’t have class that morning at 9:30 but she thought I did! Thus we were both at school an hour early when we could have taken our time and slept in more! Lesson learned: Communication is very important. J
Back to the wind—it was so strong that while waiting for the bus, I felt like I was going to be swept away by it. My hair was whipping in front of my face, just going everywhere!! Every day, my hair is crazy with the weather…rain, wind, snow, you name it. The weather in Spain does not like my hair! The electricity won’t even let me dry my hair in the mornings! J
Later that night, we met up with our usual group to go out. There was going to be an Intercambio at a bar called La Negra Flor or The Black Flower. An intercambio is a meeting of the English and Spanish language where I am able to practice my Spanish with a Spaniard and they are able to practice their English with me. However when we got there, there was 20 Eau Claire students or so there for the event (exaggerating) and 3 Spaniards…thus we did not stay very long and looked for another café/place to eat to go to. We had a hard time finding a cheap place to go to. At one point a Spainard who we thought had too much to drink was came up to Eric and was talking to him about a place to go to…at some point the man thought Eric was Spanish because his he accent sounded authentic to him. We did not trust the man’s advice and went in a different direction than he told us too.
We ended up at a rather American restaurant where some of us ordered sandwiches like BLT, Vegetarian, and Bacon and cheese. I bought una tarta Manzana which was an apple tart that kind of reminded me of flan with caramelized apple slices on top. Though it didn’t have any sugar in it, it was still quite good.
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain!
The weather in Spain right now is like a lot like Wisconsin in the spring…cool weather…rainy….VERY rainy. On Wednesday, it started off being a dreary day with a little bit of rain. The past Tuesday, it was also really rainy but something else happened…our bus broke down! Kaitlyn and I were suppose to take the bus from school to a Plaza where there is a fruit market and then to take another bus from the fruit market to Zorilla Street and walk a little ways then to our house. We were able take the bus but after the first stop, the bus driver was having a very hard time starting the bus again and
this continued to happen at every single stop. Once, we where in a 2-way street and it was taking the driver a very very long time to start back up the bus. Behind us, was a line of cars 10 and more! Eventually, we got to the fruit market but by that time we were sick of being on a crowded bus so we decided to walk home from there. The area was a little different but I noticed some familiar items our tour guide had pointed out from the day before and we eventually found our way back to the plaza mayor and from there to the plaza zorilla and home. It was quite funny that it was our first day taking the bus from school and we didn’t have Belen or really anybody to help us out. It was lightly raining but it wasn’t so bad…the next day however was like a monsoon!
It all started after school when we were heading home…it was raining a little bit but I had my umbrella with me so that was good. Once we got to the house it stopped for a little but when went back outside…it was pouring! I didn’t really have rain boots but I was wearing my shoes that I use for walking outside in the snow in WI so those worked ok. When we met up with Kara, Kristin, Eric and Adam S.-neither of them had an umbrella nor their hoods up and Adam was just wearing a sweatshirt, how ridiculous!
Before we came here we were told that it wasn’t normal to wear hoods up, but obviously with weather like that, there’s an exception…at that moment I saw a local with HIS hood up and said, “Mira!” which means “Look!” at Adam so that he would see that it was obviously ok to put up your hood for this weather. It’s obvious that we’re not from around here….a lot of people that look at us think we’re from Ingleterra or England, nothing else we do will be a big deal. So we walked around in the pouring rain for four hours…also stopped at the same café as the night before for more chocolate and churros and I had to go to a bookstore to buy a book for my grammar class. My pants were soaked and they were new so the blue dye got on my white socks (I had washed them before this trip to avoid that problem), and when we were heading back and near home my shoes were starting to get soaked too!
First Day of School!
On Tuesday we had our first day of classes…really liked all of my teachers, especially my grammar teacher, Raquel-she’s really fun and makes the class interesting. She also comes up with unique ways of remembering the rules. Till March, I have Grammar, Oral Expression, Geography, Art, Culture, and Literature.
Later on that day after class, a group of us went out to buy cell phones. I had borrowed a cell phone from a past student but because the sims card was over a year old I needed to buy a new card or phone. With the originally company, Vodafone…a new sims card would have cost me 24 euro! So I decided to just buy a new cell phone with the company, Orange. Buying the phone was a little difficult…when the lady was talking to me about a plan for my phone it was hard to understand her and she talked so fast…I would have got it eventually but good thing Kara was there to help me out and make everything clear for me and I was able to get my phone. They wouldn’t accept a credit card so I paid in euro and then I also had to show them my passport and tell them where I was staying in the city. It was a little frustrating but at least I now have a phone to use while I’m here.
Later that night, we went to a café in the Plaza Mayor called Banoque or something similar to it. I ordered cola cao (hot chocolate) and churros and another type of churro thing but it was huge and tasted like pancakes to me. It was soooo good and pretty cheap, only 3 euro…or maybe 2.50 euro…can’t remember. I was so glad to finally try this though! This past summer I was watching the travel channel and they had a show with Madrid and the host had the same food that I got. Her cola cao was so thick that she was able to place a spoon on top of the drink and it wouldn’t sink…it’s basically a melted chocolate bar. So far that’s the only sweet I’ve had while in Valladolid otherwise I have been eating pretty healthy…more fruits and vegetables…for desert I have either a mandarian, orange, apple, or banana. Their apples are larger here and we always have yellow apples..they’re also very sweet..the other night I had an apple tart and a restaurant that was really good. Their bananas are also different, they’re smaller and more dense than in the US…but still very good.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Exam and Fiesta
January 14, 2010
The next day..originally January 11, 2010…we had our placement tests for our classes. The placement test was at 10:30 so we got to sleep in a little bit which was nice. For breakfast we had this natural yogurt that tastes a lot like sour cream. To make it suitable, Kaitlyn and I both put a lot of granola with dried fruit as well as sugar into the yogurt. We also had melon and either cola cao or coffee…I had coffee with a lot of sugar and milk J. (while I am thinking of it, Belén’s name is pronounced more like Bay-lynn) There was also fruit…either melon or kiwi etc. Breakfast in Spain is normally small where as lunch is the biggest meal of the day and it is typical to have a lot of appetizers and go out for dinner and drinks. We’ve been going to some cafés for cola cao and coffee and even though a person can order something other than an alcoholic beverage, there are signs that say you have to be 16 to enter which I thought was interesting.
But anyways…after breakfast we left for the place to take our placement test (but not at the school). Since the weather right now is like spring in Wisconsin, I thought it would be okay if I didn’t have my hair dried by a hair dryer so I just left with somewhat wet hair. My host mom thought I was crazy because to her it was freezing it and was shocked that the temperature did not bother me…she kept telling Kaitlyn and I –“Estáis locas!”- “You all are crazy!” in a jokingly matter of course.
When we got there, the teachers had a brief speech on a welcome to Valladolid and then we had our placement test. It really wasn’t that bad…some things I knew for sure and some things I was a bit iffy about but found out later I got them right some things I was completely lost on. Mainly groups 1 and 2 are the same, 3 and 4 are the same, and then there is 5. I ended up being in 3 which I am really happy about because I was afraid that I would be in 1 or 2 or worse I came up with the idea that I did so bad that they would decide to simply send me back to the US…definitely glad that didn’t happen.
After the placement test we took a little historical tour around the city. We saw the building where Isabel and Fernando secretly got married, where there son (Philip?) was born, several beautiful churches and museums…but because it was Monday all the museums were closed…we’ll get to them eventually. The last place of the tour was the Plaza Mayor which still had it’s Christmas decorations up..there is a statue there of a historical figure and a really beautiful Carousel. There, Belen and Gabi met us to go home…it was a pretty decent walk but it took a while because Gabi was with us and he would stop and try to find a bathroom area for himself at every tree…he was quite picky. What was really amusing was that he brought with him one of the toys I brought as a gift…it’s a red, spiky ball that originally had blue and orange rope tied to it for a game of tug-of-war which he basically destroyed that night I gave it to him. So all the way from Belen’s place to the plaza mayor which is about 1.4 km and back, Gabi carried the red ball I gave him. Once in a while he would set it down, but would always remember it before leaving…he really is quite a smart dog.
It’s nice to give your host family a present as a way of saying thanks so I gave Gabi his ball/tug-of-war chew toy as wells three other balls in a set that are more like tennis balls but more colorful…purple/pink, blue/green and purple/green or something of the like. For Belen, I gave her tea from Infinitea in Eau Claire-it’s a really neat tea shop with over 150 different flavors of tea to try. I got a steel thing to make tea in a mug or tea pot…four fruity teas in a set…a sample of mint vanilla oolong tea and a tea scrub which is like a flavoring for food like meat, chicken, and fish. Kaitlyn brought toffee and Wisconsin cheese with fruit-blueberry, cherry, and cranberry in it. Belen was so surprised and gracious about it she decided to have us celebrate being there with some champagne and some of the toffee that Kaitlyn brought…it was really good! This happened Sunday night when I arrived at Belen’s house.
When we got back from our placement test, we took a two hour nap and around 7ish started to get ready for a dinner supplied by our tuition at a restaurant near the Plaza Mayor. The restaurant was another welcome to the students from the school and there were students from UW-Eau Claire, UW-Steven’s Point, Taiwan, South Korea, and even a student from Africa. For entertainment we had a mariachi band that was quite good and really entertaining. One of the band members knew English really well so he would talk to us all in English..after their performance they sat amongst the students and empty tables…our table was full and so when the guy who knew English came up he said, “Mujers guapas!….Y Hombres Fuerzas!!” and then left as kind of a joke because of the guys there he couldn’t sit there..also there was not an empty seat. The meals were really good..it started off with appetizers…bread with spices on top-kind of like pizza, meat that was kind of like jerky ( I didn’t have this), tortilla de patatas, batterfried shrimp with sauce inside, mini empanadas with sauce inside, and bread with water and cheap wine to drink. For dinner it was steak with peppers inside in a cylinder shape, French fries (!), and veggies-peppers, onions on the side. For desert we had flan with a side of raspberry syrup to dip the flan into and coffee. It was soooo good!!!
My table was a lot of fun too. At one point, the guy from the Mariachi Band came around and said something like, “You are all my friends..but at that table (pointing to a table across the room), they are my enemy…I would like you all to say “John Wayne, John Wayne, forever united and we drink” (in Spanish). I want you to say this and then raise your glasses in a toast and drink to it.” He then left to tell more tables about this idea…I suppose it was a friendly competition between him and a fellow band member at the ‘enemy’ table…30 or so minutes later, we had everyone but the enemies say those words and drink to it.
At random times the mariachi band would sing songs and sometimes in English…they sang: “(You are my) Sunshine,” “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah” and “La Bomba.” Just so much fun.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Meeting my Host Family
January 13, 2010
The next day…we woke up a little late and had to pack everything and get ready to take a shuttle to the airport at 12 pm. We checked out and went to the buses right at 12. It took us to the airport where we met the rest of the group to take a coach bus from Madrid to Valladolid. The trip went really well…I was tired but didn’t want to sleep and watched the scenery. Spain has a lot of Mountains and they are so beautiful!! It was strange though because there were also palm trees around in the village/small city areas.
The bus stopped in front of a building where all the host parents were gathering. I watched them anxiously trying to figure out who my host mom could be. My roommate Kaitlyn and I were the third or fourth group of people to be called to meet our host mom. My host mom’s name is Belen (Bay-len) and she has a dog Gabi and a bird Javi..Gabi is kind of like a sheep dog with fur in front of his eyes. He is really intelligent and very smart. For a gift, I brought him some toys and he loved them so much he tore them up already lol. Belen is very nice and very helpful with my Spanish. It’s a little hard to understand her sometimes with her accent, how she talks, and all the new words…but she is very helpful and I am really thankful for that. Belen also knows some English and we’ve been teaching her a little bit so that helps both ways.
When she met Kaitlyn, and me she was with her friend Ana who was also hosting two girls from our school. We need to take a bus to our area of the city so instead of waiting outside in the ‘cold,’ we went inside a café and had some coffee or cola cao (hot chocolate). It was really good, but I needed a lot of sugar and milk…I’m not use to just plain coffee.
My house/apartment/piso is on Hernan Cortes street which is off of Zorilla street…one of the main streets in Valladolid that is named after a famous author that is from Valladolid. The apartment is quite large…especially our bedroom it was really high ceilings. Because water and energy is so expensive we try to only use water for washing and cleaning in the morning and afternoon and the same with using energy-especially turning on lights but we have internet all day which is really nice!!
We kind of spent the day talking and eating a late lunch and then dinner that night. It was relaxing.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
An Adventure in Madrid!
January 10, 2010
Yesterday, a group of us went on an adventure in Madrid. Using our all day pass for the bus and metro system, we went to the heart of Madrid. Our main goal was to find the Prado art museum at 6 when it would be free for the public. When we got off the metro we started to walk around the city and eventually came upon La Plaza Mayor. There were many street performers and it was really neat to be there after seeing all of these pictures from my Spanish classes. By that time it was noon and we were hungry. Our next goal was to find a place to eat. Because we our poor college students, we wanted to find a cheap meal. We finally came upon a restaurant where a very nice guy came out to greet us and told us that he had an English menu we could read…though we know words for foods in Spanish much of the words on the menus outside we did not know. We ended up getting water (which came in bottles and empty glasses to pour in) and tortilla Espana or something like that which was kind of like an omlette and the five of us split it.
Afterwards we kept walking around and came across a gorgeous Cathedral. It was huge and the artwork inside was wonderful. Right next door was La Palacia Royal and next to that was a garden with statues, trees, and stairs. It was all really beautiful!! I took so many pictures.
Because 6 pm was soon approaching, we really wanted to find the Prado museum, we got there right at 6 pm! There was a lot of beautiful artwork. In my Spanish classes I’ve looked at a lot of Greco and Goya artwork so it was good to see that in person.
Though we had an amazing day, the real adventure started after the Prado Museum. We had walked around already for 8 or so hours and really wanted to back and rest. So we started to head back to the shopping area where we had come out of from the metro. We were pretty hungry again and really craving some sweets so we wanted to find a sweet shop. We walked up and down the busy streets that had a bit of altitude to them and came across a sweets shop. We bought these bakery goods that are a soft bread like a croissent (but not buttery) with chocolate inside and chocolate sprinkles on top, it was really good! Afterwards we started to head back to our hotel, Kris Suites. We needed to take the metro so we did that till we reached one point, left the metro to find a bus to take back to our area. We were at the wrong bus stop so we stopped and asked a man about and he told us we needed to go back 2 stops, get off and take a bus there. We did this but still did not find the right bus stop (it was in an area with multiple stops and we realized that we just needed to go to a different one later). So, we got on the metro once more and finally—we were at the right one right when our bus was pulling up. Que suerte! What Luck! At about 11 o’clock at night, after 10 hours of walking, we were finally done for the day!! Well, not quite, for dinner-a group of us (Kara, Adam S., y Yo) went to the mall near by for dinner. Normally in Spain restaurants and cafes are open very late, but everything was starting to close and we couldn’t decide on what to get…we went to one restaurant…it was closing…walked to another, the same thing! There was a mc’donalds and a burger king…a $1 value menu burger was 3.49 euros there!!
We eventually settled for a little restaurant that served us 8 appetizers and 2 drinks for only 13 euro that Adam and I split. In Spain going to a restaurant only for appetizers and drinks is very common. The appetizers were an assortment of meats and sauces and spices on top of slices of fresh bread..some we weren’t quite sure of but others were really good. Overall, a decent ‘meal’ while traveling abroad. Afterwards we all went back to the hotel. The next day we would be off to Valladolid to meet our host families!
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Flight to Spain!
January 8, 2010
My flight to Madrid was very long but I was still able to get there in one piece. My whole trip started off on Wednesday January 6th when my mom and I left to stay in a hotel in Chicago overnight. For dinner we ate the Cheescake Factory at the Woodfield Mall. It was very good! I had the bistro shrimp pasta for dinner and the banana cream cheesecake for desert along with a raspberry lemonade to drink. The next day it snowed-a lot- and we were worried that my flight to Dallas would be delayed. I took a flight to Dallas with a group of girls and even though we were able to board the airplane on time for the most part, we had to wait up to 2 hours in the plane before we could leave. They were doing required system checks such as defrosting the plane, filling up on gas, getting stand-bys on board etc.
When we checked into the airport, they told me my luggage was much too large to fit into the overheard compartments and they would put it on the luggage below the plane. I was fine with this and they gave me a ticket stub that would with my luggage which I kind of expected I could use to pick up my luggage right a way at the Dallas airport. When we arrived in Dallas, I asked a worker where I could pick up my carry-on and he told me at the baggage claim. So I left with another girl to go collect my luggage.
Because our flight left 2 hours late, we only had about an hour before our flight for Madrid would ‘depart.’ I eventually retrieved my carry-on like 15 minutes later and was then told to go to a security check-point which really was a short customs check point. I got through it ok but a worker told me there were questionable items in my huge carry-on. These suspicious items included my jewelry ( I did bring a lot), tea packets, and small cards I was planning on mailing. 5-10 minutes later I got my luggage back and had to pack it away there. At this point it was probably 5:10 or 5:15 and I was still at Terminal A and had to get all the way to terminal D for my D30 flight for Madrid.
I took the skyline train system to my terminal which made at least 8 or so other stops before it got to my terminal. While I was on the train there was a family that got on that was speaking all in Spanish and I kind of wanted to ask them if they were going to Spain but I didn’t and was glad because they got off at 2 terminals before mine.
After about 20-25 minutes on being on the skyline, I final got to my destination at D30, I started looking around as I was walking towards the gate for my group, but they were not there. Behind the desk at the D30 gate was at least 5-7 airport workers waiting for just me. I was the very last person on the flight! One of the workers, maybe a pilot joked, “Where were you? You have like 20 messages on your cell phone!” Exhausted, I just nodded and replied, “Yes.” Truly, I did have 3 messages from these workers. When I didn’t show up (and before this Andrea had let them know that I was in that airport and on my way to the gate. I also had one text message because one of the ladies figured that since I was 19, I don’t call/listen to voice mails, I text!! If I had the time and more hands I would have answered these calls, but being determined to get on that plane to Madrid, I just ignored them.
With my oversized carry-on, I went on the plane and off to Madrid. I would have slept on the plan as suggested, but I just couldn’t…instead I watched two movies- “Shorts” and “Monsters vs. Aliens”…also, as I was trying to fall asleep at 12 am…The Office came on with the Pam and Jim wedding episode so of course, I had to watch that.
After claiming our luggage we went outside to wait for our free shuttle to the hotel-Kris Suites. After about 30-60 minutes we started to call for the shuttle but we were having some trouble. We eventually got through and were told that it would be there in 5-10 minutes, probably only because there was another man on the shuttle who probably called beforehand.
Our hotel room is really nice, we have four rooms- a bedroom with 2 beds, a living room with a bed, couch, coffee table, mini fridge, small tv, and plenty of storage room. A bathroom and even a kitchen with large fridge and freezer, stove, oven, sink, dishwasher, and even a washer for clothes!
For food we went to the mall where it turns out they have a grocery store. Me and another girl Kristin from my hotel room got strawberry yogurt (which we had to ‘drink’), turkey, bread, and this strange butter, Levital, which is rubbery-like, not yellow, and has a nutty/smoky taste to it, but I really like it a lot anway. So that it’s for now…I had a really exciting day in Madrid that I will type about later.