To Be Continued...

It's exam week and my parents are here. It's a little nonstop right now. I'll update again Thursday afternoon or early evening when my exams are finished and my family is on a plane headed for the States. Until then, it's going to be nonstop studying, spending time with them, and catching a nap here and there. This Friday will be 7 weeks in and 9 to go. I don't want to wish the time away, but there really is no place like home and I miss it terribly.

Well, I suppose...

Well, I haven't felt like writing. I've been a little down though I'm not sure why. I guess I'll start from last week, when I set the pencil (keyboard, I guess) down. Wednesday, I gave my presentation over The Clan of the Cave Bear and everything went fantastically. I had a powerpoint presentation that was well put-together and colorful with all kinds of descriptive pictures and bulleted points so that my classmates could follow along. I took up more than the required 10 minutes and taught everyone new words in Spanish, such as "manada" (herd) and "antepasado" (ancestor). I only stumbled here and there and only forgot to mention a few minor points. I was pretty happy with it. The downside, because there is always a downside, is that, after all of my hard work, about half the class had their eyes glazed over within the first 2 minutes, which I don't believe is a reflection of my presentation abilities, but a revelation about the type of people with whom I am attending class. Also, I think I have put the most effort into this project than anyone and I am very proud of how it turned out. I raised the bar, but everyone else refuses to reach it. That's fine, but the teacher will grade on their level and I will have done all that work for nothing. Ah, well.

Thursday, I bought my tickets for Spring Break. Here is the plan. I am going to Rome for 4 days, London for 4 days and Paris for 4 days. I plan on taking side-trips, here and there. I want to see Venice, Stonehenge and Bath, and I was kind of hoping to visit the prehistoric caves of France, but I'm not sure that that will be feasible for a day-trip. So far, the plane tickets for Rome, Paris, then Madrid have cost me a good $270 (ouch!). This does not include the train ticket to London, the side-trips, food or lodging, or entrance fees to places I want to visit. This will be one expensive Spring Break. Part of me wonders if I should have just caught a flight to the Canary Islands and lived on the beach for 12 days.

Friday morning, we left on our weekend trip to Cantabria, a northern "state" (they call them autonomous communities) in Spain. There wasn't that much to do there, but it was the most gorgeous place I've ever seen. Friday morning, I was hoping to get to the bus early in order to get a good seat, but my host mom was a little late in giving us our lunches and Carla was late getting ready, so we didn't leave the piso until less than 5 until 9 (when we needed to be there at 9) and didn't get there until 5 after. Fortunately, we weren't the last to arrive, but I was stuck with an aisle seat. I was feeling a bit ill from the breakfast (I'll never get used to our milk) and mentioned it when asked. This caused my seat partner to collect his things and rush to the back of the bus. I felt badly, but, at the same time, I got the window seat, and the entire seat to myself...

Our first stop was in Castilla-Léon in the city of Burgos. We visited The Cathedral of Burgos, this giant (beautiful) cathedral that they began building in 1221 and that is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It has the remains of El Cid Campeador (does anyone remember the movie?) and his wife Doña Jimena. Tom and I watched the movie with his grandparents not long ago, so it was kind of cool to see his resting place. The catherdral was wonderful, but it was freezing! I kept thinking: When will this cathedral end?! We just walked and walked and walked. We had to have passed about 15 "Salida" (exit) signs on our way through this maze.

A very small section of the Cathedral of Burgos. It's gorgeous, isn't it? Especially the sky...

We ate our lunch in Burgos, which was nice. I hung out with pretty much one girl the whole time and we chatted. She is a very open and outspoken girl, so I learned her opinion about pretty much everything in that day, and I shared a bit of mine. It was a nice bonding time. 

Our hotel for the weekend was in Santillana del Mar. This place was amazing. It's this little town of stone streets and stone buildings. Very old-timey. Very medieval, in a not creepy way. It was gorgeous. However, our first stop was at the Museum of Torture where we viewed all the different kinds of torture that they used during the Inquisition. It was pretty horrible. I was rather disturbed. I really can't imagine how one person could do such things to another human being. I'm not against capital punishment, and I'm not saying terrible people should go in a painless bliss, but this stuff was terrible. And beyond that, it was disturbing to see how entertained some of the people of our group were. These were real people who may have done nothing worse than say that the church may not be correct in everything. I can't even imagine. I lost my faith in people again for a bit.

This is a hollow metal cow. People would shove other people inside of it, lock them in and then light a fire underneath until the person inside was cooked to death. What kind of twisted mind would even think this up?

Saturday, we visited three other "pueblos" (little cities, or villages, kind of) of Cantabria: Comillas, Potes, and San Vicente de la Barquera. In Comillas, we saw the beach, though we didn't go near and it was rather cold, a few gorgeous buildings of which I can remember no history except that the one was done by Gaudí (recall that Barcelona would be nothing without Gaudí). They were El Capricho, The Palace of Sobrellano and the Universidad Pontificia Comillas. 

We left Comillas and headed down this mountain to Potes. This was the most frightening drive I've ever been on. We are in this giant bus, rounding all kinds of curves with cars flying past when there is barely room for two cars. The bus driver is swearing and honking the horn, but I was completely transfixed by the scenery. I couldn't pay attention to the bus coming nearer to the edge of this cliff we were on. Apparently, though, everyone else was feeling the curves far more than I was. Not long into the ride, Susana, our director, came by asking "¿Estás bien? ¿Estás bien?" (Are you alright?) I had no idea why until the girl a few seats away began vomiting. The fun thing about Spanish is that "to vomit" is "vomitar", so when we recounted our adventures in class this week, everyone kept saying, "Michelle vomitó en el autobus." It was great.

The mountains near Potes. We didn't drive those, but they were in the background the entire time. Look at how gorgeous the sky looks. Not a cloud in sight.

Near Potes, we went to the Monasterio de Santo Toribio de Liébana. In this monastery is the (believed) largest piece still in existence of the wooden cross upon which Christ died. Many might think that would be an amazing thing to be able to see... I thought it was kind of creepy, but I guess tons and tons of pilgrims made their way to this monastery in order to see it. Potes was a beautiful little town full of angry locals that dislike tourists. The group I tagged along with got lucky and found an empty friendly restaurant in which to have our lunch (toasted sandwich of fried egg, tomato, lettuce, and mayonnaise; Delicious!). We wandered around later. I bought some earrings (I think I'll buy earrings from every place I visit) and we took some fantastic pictures of the scenery.

Me in Potes. You can see the river below, kind of, it's the shiny thing to the left of me, part of the village and the mountains in the background.

San Vicente de la Barquera was right next to the sea. I took some amazing photos and we arrived right around sunset, so some are even better. We checked out the cathedral and a castle. Both were nice, but the views stole the show. The sea was freezing though. We didn't even bother going down to the beach. The wind was enough to keep us all huddled together. It was Valentine's Day though, so I stopped in a candy shop and bought myself a heart sucker. Great day, beautiful sun. It was colder than I would have liked, but it wasn't raining, which apparently is a miracle for northern Spain.

San Vicente... This is a view from the top of the castle looking out toward the sea. Those little things in the water are boats and you can see part of the castle there at the bottom of the picture.

Sunday morning, a quick unexciting tour of Santillana del Mar and then we headed to the Altamira Caves, which I discussed in my presentation and somewhat influenced Auel while writing her books. They are the caves discovered in 1871 with prehistoric cave paintings, far advanced from what was expected for the time. I was a little disappointed. Firstly, no pictures at all. I mean, these are fake caves. Reproductions. Why can't we take pictures? Then, I wanted to buy a t-shirt at the gift shop, but all of the t-shirts were ugly, basically, and very expensive. I finally settled on a stuffed mammoth that I fell in love with for more money than he was worth, but I had to take him home. He was a hit with everyone too. I wish we had had more time to wander around the museum part of it, but we didn't. It wasn't all a disappointment. It was gorgeous and amazing and it made me happy to learn more about prehistoric people, but I just wish that the people who run the museum weren't so uptight and wouldn't rip you off at the gift shop. It made the experience a little less amazing and feel a bit like a tourist trap, when, considering what it is, it should never be considered as such.

The ride home wasn't bad at all. I sat and discussed life with a grad student for most of the time and caught a catnap here and there, but I had had a late night Thursday talking with Tom and then two late nights in the hotel, hanging out with people in different rooms. Of course I couldn't go home and sleep. I had to get home and begin to write an essay about my trip, in Spanish, and finish up the rest of my homework. I didn't make it to bed until after 3 and was up before 7. Needless to say, I was exhausted and not loving life at this point. Monday was a long, difficult day. The internet in the school gave out and I needed to begin studying for midterms. I caught up on my sleep yesterday, but I'm behind on my studying and my parents are coming soon. Lots of pressure right now and I'm really feeling it. 

I miss home terribly. I've even begun counting the days and I'm not even halfway through. I think I'll feel better when midterms are over, but then my family will be leaving at the same time. It's just going to be an emotional week and a half. I just hope I handle it well. I guess I have no choice.

Well, I think that's about it... I need to head home now. Catch a nap and start organizing myself for the studying that I'm going to need to do over the next 5 or 6 days. I'm not excited. I might check for typos later, but it takes so long to upload these pictures and everything that it's just not worth it right now.

Some things I thought about while killing time in this hallway...

Well, it's Monday. I didn't have to do my presentation today because the teacher ended up talking for a long time. Our class is having a really difficult time with the subjunctive. I thought about doing it anyway (in 15 minutes) because I was, for the most part, prepared, but I can always use a little extra time and I really didn't want to have to rush to finish in 15 minutes when the presentation needs to be at least 10 and is 15% of our grade. I managed to get what seems like a good deal of homework today, for some reason. Maybe I'll try to do it all tonight. I kind of like not procrastinating. At least recently it has given me extra time to work on my presentations and the like. Unfortunately, I was planning on beginning to study for midterms immediately after I completed my presentation, so now I'll have two days left for that, but I guess it's okay. I'm working on it.

I'm not sure why... whether it's the walking, the weather, or I'm just getting old... but ever since I've been here, my old soccer injury has been hurting me. One time, while I was playing a game of soccer in summer gym, I managed to kick the ball with my foot straight and pretty much crushed my big toe. No one told me that you are supposed to kick the ball with the inside of your foot and it really didn't occur to me. It wasn't that big of a deal. I had to sit out for the rest of the game and my big toe looked a little crooked (it still does), but it didn't hurt too badly. Two or three days later, I ran 3 miles on it and did just fine, so I thought I was good. But now, it's been killing me. I wonder if I'm going to be one of those people that always knows when it's going to rain because the drop in pressure has affected my misplaced joint. Usually, though, those people are really old.

Other news: My host mom seems to be taking an interest in my learning Spanish after I mentioned that I felt one of my biggest faults as her charge was that I couldn't speak very well and that the majority of the Americans (really all of them) do not want to speak in Spanish when we speak together. We had to sign this agreement that we would always speak in Spanish in class, with each other, and outside of class, but so far I haven't noticed anyone following this. Anyway, she taught me how to say "leaf" today by pointing out the "hoja" on the stem of a tangerine. And she's talking to me more slowly and explaining words that I don't know. So that's an improvement. I still should find an intercambio, but I'm too afraid to inconvenience people. I'm hoping to just run into one, like Dah-veed's roommate (I'm just going to spell it phonetically from now on because this guy just doesn't look like a David and I don't want anyone to get it messed up). 

I should really start taking pictures of my American "friends". I don't know if I'll ever see any of them ever again (maybe I'll head to Bowling Green sometime to hang out with them), but it would be nice to at least have pictures of them. Especially the ones that seem to like me. People have taken pictures of me, but so far, only a few have posted them on facebook and tagged me. I don't even think I am facebook friends with a bunch of them. I'm really terrible at finding people. I let them come to me.

Anyway, I should do something constructive. Not that this isn't constructive, but...

El Escorial and the rest of my weekend

Yesterday, I took a day-trip with my roommate to El Escorial. We went by train, which was okay. It was really cold though. We left Alcalá by 7am, bought our tickets and got on a train that took us almost to El Escorial. It was cold and windy and the further west we went, the more snow was on the ground. The ride was pretty scenic though. Spain has really nice mountains and they are especially pretty covered in snow. We had to change trains, but other than that, the ride was pretty uneventful. Just a little tiring because it was 8am, with nothing to do, on a train rocking you to sleep. But it was cold. Very very cold. It took about 2 hours on the train to get there.

When we got to El Escorial, we hopped on a bus to take us from the train station to the bus station, which is closer to Royal Monastery. We headed straight there because it was only just 10 and the bus to the Valley of the Fallen didn't leave until 3:15. We were one of the first people inside the monastery, which opened at 10am. We paid for a guided tour (10 euro) because with a guided tour you get to see more of the place. Unfortunately, they refused to assign us a guide who spoke English because we were the only English speakers there at the time. So I had to listen to the tour in Spanish, which means I didn't get to understand very much. However, my roommate translated a lot of it for me and I had my Rick Steve's book with his own information about each room, so it wasn't too bad. 

Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial. Look at how nice the sky looked at this point... One thing about this place was that it's not nearly as pretty as most cathedral and castle places we have seen so far. Just walls and windows. It was still beautiful.

I loved the sundial-ish things on the floor of the Walking Room. There was a hole (now plugged) above a window that the sun would come through and there was a strip across the floor that would tell you what time it was according to the time of year. The other thing that I really liked was the Royal Pantheon. It was a circular room with rows of coffins where the kings and queens (only the queens that gave birth to kings) were placed after their deaths. There are still three coffins that aren't filled yet, but they already have people (dead, but properly decomposing) waiting to be placed into them. I wonder where their bodies are for now... it was amazing though. Generation after generation of royalty, stacked on top of one another. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but I bought a postcard with a picture of the room on it. Another kind of creepy thing, was the room with a huge circular... um... thing in the middle of it where the remains of all of the royal children that died before their seventh birthday (their first communion) were placed. The sculptures were pretty amazing. Some of the coffins in the other areas had statues of the people within carved on top. Gorgeous, but a little creepy.

Royal Pantheon of El Escorial. Those are the coffins, stacked four high. Kings on the left, queens on the right. You can see how it's very pretty, but at the same time, kind of weird. Especially walking in there as a king or something and knowing that the next coffin will have your name on it...

The Spanish older people that were in our group were like misbehaving children. It was a little shocking. Like at one point, there is a giant curtain with one of those velvet rope looking things in front of it and one old lady walked around the velvet rope to go peek behind the curtain. A nearby guard had to tell her that she wasn't supposed to be behind the rope. Then, there was a big coffin with a statue of the guy (I forget at the moment who it was) carved on the top of the coffin. It clearly said "Do not touch" in four languages, but many of the Spaniards had to touch every square inch of this thing after the guide had left the room. 

After we left the basement where all the bodies are, our guide left us, which I thought was kind of crappy. Carla and I managed to tag on to the end of another group with a guide that occasionally spoke some English. We found out later that this guide was traveling with their group and they had their own bus and everything, but she didn't tell us we couldn't follow them, so we did. We learned a few things about the paintings. I love El Greco and there were quite a few of his there. She also pointed out this fantastic painting on the ceiling above the main staircase that I would have missed entirely. It was gorgeous. She told who some of the people were and how it was so interesting because many of the figures were painted with their bottom halves larger than the top halves so that it would look like they were hanging down from the ceiling. I bought a postcard of the painting too, although it is so big and the postcard is so small that it is difficult to make out many of the figures.

The other really amazing part of this place was the library. Absolutely beautiful. A very very long room with paintings across the ceiling. Each portion of the ceiling had a different educational subject of importance, such as math, music, astrology, etc. and the walls below each section had a historical story related to each subject. I didn't get to look long enough because I didn't realize that it did this until I was already at the other end of the room. It was amazing though. The guide called in the most important library in the world, but I'm pretty sure she was just being biased for some reason. There weren't that many books and they were all backwards in order to allow the pages to breath. And almost none of them were behind glass, so I can't imagine these books are that important, though I could very easily have missed a good explanation.

Royal Library. You can see the paintings on the ceiling. It was gorgeous.

The basilica was closed that day because they are restoring it, which a little disappointing, but I wasn't too worried about it. It seems that everything seems to be being restored this year for some reason. Anyway, after we left the library, the guide told the group that they had 15 minutes to use the bathroom, stop at the cafeteria, and go to the gift shop. We followed them still, why not? It was freezing and the wind was hitting the monastery at just the right angle that it was whipping around corners and stopping us in our tracks. So we headed to the cafeteria and I got some hot chocolate. It was the best hot chocolate that I've had since I've been here and it warmed me up. It was definitely a highlight of the trip. When we were trying to ask one of the guys that we knew was in the group where they were meeting, we found out he didn't speak Spanish, so we tried English, which didn't work either, so my roommate tried French, because she knows how to speak French too, and they launch into this whole long conversation about who he is and why he is in Spain, which I didn't follow, of course, because I barely speak Spanish, let alone French.

We followed the group all of the way back to the bus station where they all got on a bus, presumably to head up to the Valley of the Fallen. We were going to just get on the bus and the old french man wanted us to (I think it was the first conversation he had had in a language he knew well in a long time), but the guide told us no. So we decided that it was lunch time and walked around and around and around looking for a decently priced restaurant. We tried some of Rick Steve's suggestions, but they were a bit expensive. We went to the market, which was built in 1871 and had a fountain in it where horses could drink from (back when people rode horses to the market), but there wasn't much going on there. We finally found a small, smoky (I so miss no smoking in public buildings) cafe where we could get tortilla sandwiches. They weren't bad... a little cold and when we asked the lady to heat them in the microwave, she got offended and told us that they were just made and were fresh, but she got over it and heated them up for us. 

We had about an hour to kill before the bus left, but we went and sat in the bus station anyway. I was freezing, my pants were soaked around the ankles, and the bus station wasn't very warm (they don't believe in heat sometimes), but we sat on a seat in the sun and talked a bit while we waited until the ticket booth opened. After waiting nearly an hour for the ticket booth, we went to by our tickets for the bus to the Valley of the Fallen. It turns out, that half an inch of snow is more than sufficient to shut down the Valley for many days and it was closed. I was a bit peeved. It's half an inch of snow people... and my roommate was upset because this was her second time to El Escorial and she had missed the bus to the Valley of the Fallen that last time she went. I figured that it was closed because the mountain was slippery and they didn't want to send a bus up there, so I decided that we were going to make the 30 some minute hike up the mountain (I guess there is a nice trail), but a lady in the bus station told us that they close the monument and everything. Because of half an inch of snow... Anyway, she told us that we could go visit the historical prince's summer home instead. We wandered around looking for souvenir shops for awhile (all were closed because it was siesta) and ended up going back to the monastery gift shop to buy all of my postcards. I bought the two I mentioned and then one of the library and one of a drawing of the monastery with little people on horses and carriages and stuff. It reminded me of Age of Empires and I thought that Tom would really like it, so I had to buy it.

Then we made our way to the prince's summer home. The garden would probably have looked really nice in the spring and summer, but it was kind of bare and sad right now. There were really good views of the surrounding mountains though. I took some pictures. When we got up to the gate, we were told that the house isn't open to visitors until after Semana Santa (Easter week). Sigh.

View from the garden of the prince's summer home. You can kind of see the snow-covered mountains and for sure the snow-covered ground. The mountains kind of blend into the white sky though. It was a little cloudy at this point of the day.

We decided to head home after that. It was an hour until the next train to Madrid came, so we sat in a nearby cafe. I decided to get another hot chocolate because the first that day was so delicious. It was a mistake. You have to be very careful about the hot chocolate here because sometime they just hand you a cup of, pretty much Hershey's syrup, only maybe a bit thicker and creamier, and it's disgusting to try to stomach. I drank as much as I could because I had paid for it, but it made me a bit ill.

The train ride back wasn't bad because we managed to get on a train that was going to Alcalá. We only had to change trains once because the front half was going to Alcalá and the back half was going somewhere else (really weird). The people in the car told us that we were in the correct car, but after they separated the train in half a man came over the speaker saying that our car was going somewhere else, so half the car jumped up, leapt out of the train, sprinted down the platform to the front of the train and leapt back on. We made it, thankfully, but it was a bit crazy.

When I got home, finally, I talked with Tom a bit online, but I was exhausted. I hadn't slept much the night before and had gotten up at 6am. So when dinner was served at about 9:15, I ate my fill and went straight to bed. It felt fantastic. I slept forever. Almost 14 hours and it felt amazing. Yesterday really wore me out more than I realized, and I had the craziest dreams. I woke up not being able to distinguish the dreams from reality (Did someone say that or did I dream that someone said it?), which is really irritating. But when I sleep late, I get to skip breakfast, which makes me happy. 

Also, I guess my roommate and my host mom aren't getting along too well right now. Apparently, my roommate has been coming home pretty late for dinner, mostly because she doesn't have a computer and does all of her homework at the cafes at night, and my host mom isn't happy about it. Carla said that my host mom yelled at her about it on Thursday after I left to hang out with my friends. Carla is kind of unhappy with the situation. I guess I'll have to see how it works out.

I realize that I haven't mentioned what I did Thursday night. Well, some of the graduate students, after a semester of living with a host family, decided to get their own places (including my roommate's old roommate). So I was invited, along with another girl sitting in the hallway with me to one of the graduate student's apartment. I was all for it, but she wanted to check with other people before she would agree, which made me realize how well I'm doing with my goals. I wanted to open up a bit and learn to be more confident and not rely on people anymore. Well, here I am spending a lot of time with a bunch of different people. I don't have a select group of friends that I have to run to in order to see what they are doing first, or if they want to go too. I've made a few, not enemies, but there are a few people that don't like me, but I think that there are more people that do. I've impressed people with my tequila drinking, with coming here even though I've had very little Spanish, and because I'm going to graduate the minute I get home. My host mom even mentioned that I keep my room very organized (this is thanks to Tom of course, because his obsessive compulsive-ness rubbed off a bit).

Anyway, I show up at the grad-student's house with a few other people. He's such a great host. He had the potato chips and the other kind of potato chips, in the same bowl, separated evenly. He had drinks and cups and even brought back some wine when he left to show more people where he lived. I decided to live a little and play some beerpong... my first ever game of beerpong, and as I expected, I lost horribly and it was disgusting. I refused a second game. One of David's (the graduate student, but you have to pronounce it Dah-veed because that's what we call him) roommates is from Venezuela and I tried talking with her for a bit. Mostly I just had to follow her conversations with other people because I flipped out a bit when she talked directly to me, but I could understand her so much better because she doesn't have the Spanish accent. She was sitting in the room with us to listen to us speak in English, to practice a bit. I secretly want to have an intercambio (language interchange where you speak two different languages in order to practice each) with her because she's not very good at English, so I wouldn't feel so badly about my being terrible at Spanish. It sounded like she's really busy though, so I don't know if she'd even have time.

So, we hung out a bit and I was told these things by different people: That I was one of the grad-student's favorite undergrads and that one of the undergrads was glad I was there. So I was very happy. After that, we walked around a bit, went to a bar or two, ran into some more people. I had a good conversation with one of the other undergrads that I hadn't really talked to before about why we decided to come here and how we feel about being here. Then it started pouring rain and some how, we ended up at the Can-Can. I'm  not really a big fan of this place. People smoke a lot in there and it's in the basement of this place, so the smoke gets really thick really quickly and makes me sick. I headed home with some other people rather than wade my way through the smoke.

I really miss not having to deal with smoke, but I know I'll miss having the bars stay open until 5 or 6am.

Friday, I slept in a bit, but mostly hung out at home. Next weekend, we go to Cantabria, where it's snowing and ugly. I'm so excited for the Altamira Caves though. Recall the book that I bought at the CarreFour. Well, these caves were a big inspiration for the author when she wrote the fifth book of the series and I've known this for many many years now, but I didn't realize that we were going to the town right next to where these caves are located. I'm ecstatic. And I'm probably the only one of the entire group to be so. I'm going to do a presentation tomorrow, in Spanish, over that book, so I'm going to work on that for awhile now. Quit procrastinating. 

My parents come in less than 2 weeks!! Hooray!

All in a Day

So, yesterday (Tuesday anyway), I didn't really leave the piso all day. By evening, I was getting claustrophobic and my legs were cramping (they are now used to a good two mile walk per day), so I decided to go for a walk. I walked around Nueva Alcala, the south part of town by the river, trying to find the laundry place. Secretly, I want a place where I can go with dirty clothes and come back two hours later with clean ones. I'm not used to not knowing exactly where my laundry is for days on end. It was closed when I stopped by, with a metal door covering all windows and doors, so I couldn't even peak in. But Nueva Alcala was pretty nice. Mostly just apartment buildings, but some shops here and there. Most of Alcala is just apartment buildings. Most people live here and then take the bus or train into Madrid to work everyday. Anyway, I plan on stopping there tomorrow during the day to check it out.

After I left Nueva Alcala, I headed down towards the plaza. Then I figured that I may as well stop at the CarreFour (the Meijers type place) and look for some spices to spice up this bland food we are always eating. That is the number one thing that everyone has said about the food. We've never had anything blander. So I headed to the CarreFour. Now, for the past week or so, I've been setting off alarms in department stores. I set off the one at the Corte Ingles like six times while in Barcelona, but I haven't been setting them off all of the time and it's only really been recently, so I was kind of confused. Anyway, I go into the CarreFour and set off the alarm on the way in. The security guard stops me (first time that's happened) and makes me walk through again. So I had to set the thing off two more times while people turned to stare. He pulls out a wand and tells me to open my coat, which of course, I had no idea what he was saying, so I stared at him blankly until he pointed at my buttons and made motions. So I open up my coat and he points to this tag on the inside of my coat that says "Please remove after purchasing" and I guess had some sort of metal security thing in it. So the guy shakes his head in a chastising way and pulls out some scissors to cut it off. 

As an aside, I love my pea coat. I wasn't so sure about it. It was $80 and I am not in the habit of paying such money for something like a coat, but I broke down and my mom bought it for me. And I love love love it. I don't think I'll wear another coat again, at least until next winter when it's negative some degrees again. It keeps me warm and it's very stylish, which I usually don't pull off.

So, back to the CarreFour. I wandered around and found this fantastic isle full of spices and sauces and delicious condiments. I hadn't thought to look up how to say "Chili Powder" in spanish and had to go through the entire shelf, eliminating anything not red and powdery and then narrowing it down to what could only be chili powder, if they carried it at all. Luckily, it was, thank goodness. I also grabbed some vinegar, but all they had was white wine vinegar, which I think is different than the vinegar that I eat at home, but was still delicious enough. Lastly, I searched and searched until I found some tabasco sauce. It was hidden in a corner shelf at the bottom, for some reason. 

I wandered around some more with my arms full, grabbing a box of mini Chips Ahoy!, and contemplating a few other delicious snackies for late nights, when I found the books section. I decided to go all out and buy the first book from pretty much my favorite book series, The Earth's Children (by the way, thanks Aunt Ruth for introducing me to them), in spanish and I was so excited about that. It was 10,50 euro, which is a little steep, in my opinion, but I figured I'd feel better about having my book and would be practicing more spanish along the way. It has ended up being a little intense. In the first page, I have looked up more than 50 words and have learned probably 8 different words for "rock". 

Anyway, I go to pay. The place is packed with people, for some reason at 8 something on a Tuesday night. The woman rings up all of my stuff, but she rings up my book last and as I glance up at the scanner, I see 19,50 euro and I was like, wait a minute... that book was only 10,50 euro. So I try to tell her by pointing at the price and she has no idea what I'm talking about and then realizes what I'm thinking and tells me that that isn't the price of the book, that's the total price. So I feel like an idiot and the whole long line behind me is tapping their feet in impatience. But no worries. I bag my stuff and head out the door. 

As I'm crossing the street, I realize that I have lost a glove and I'm very upset about this because I love these gloves. Mama and Papa gave them to me for Christmas and they are warm and thin and fantastic and I really didn't want to lose one. So after scouring the streets looking for my glove, I decide that I must have dropped it in the CarreFour and head back. I have my bag in my hand, so I can't walk through the alarm gates again, so I walk up and down in front of the cash registers trying to see down these isles, which is completely impossible. So I try to figure out how to ask if someone found it and realize I don't know the words "lost" or "glove" in spanish. I stand at the front of the store, shifting my weight from foot to foot, unwilling to give up on the glove, but not having enough courage to begin a conversation that I have no words for. Finally, I go up to the security guard (a different one because the one who cut the tag off my coat is gone) and hold up my lone glove and say, "have you seen the other?" which may not have translated into spanish well because I don't think "other" can even be a noun (maybe it can? I don't know), but after she asked a few questions that I just answered yes to even though I had no idea what she was asking, she said that she did not have it and she had not seen it. So I asked her, "can you watch my bag when..." (although I think I actually said purse) and just handed her my bag of groceries. More talking that I did not understand, she took the bag and I walked through the gate to look for my glove. Lo and behold, just as I start to head into the store, here comes the security guard who cut the tag off of my coat, holding my glove in his hand. He gave me quite a speech, the contents of which, or even the tone, I have no idea, but I thanked him profusely, grabbed my bag, and left.

But I survived! It was a struggle, but last night, I had the best tasting blended vegetables that I've had since I've been here. Blended vegetables with chili powder.

And I'm doing better than some people. Today, I heard someone say, "I hate this place!" referring to Spain. I don't hate it here. I'm doing alright. I just still can't speak the language, that's all. Well, I can speak okay, but I can't understand. I'm working on it.

Barcelona would be nothing without Gaudí

So, this weekend past, we went to Barcelona. I want to go back. Not because I had such a fabulous time that I have to experience it all again and more, but because I was so disappointed with the trip that I want to go back and actually enjoy it. The biggest problem with the trip was that it rained a lot. Friday wasn't bad and I enjoyed almost everything we saw that night, but we didn't get there until after 4pm and that was after an 8 hour bus ride, so I wasn't feeling my best anyway. But we saw some amazing things that night. 

For one, The Sagrada Familia, which is a gorgeous and gigantic church, designed by Gaudi, a very ahead-of-his-time architect who made Barcelona beautiful. We didn't go inside, but we could see people poking their heads out of the top towers and I really wanted to go in to climb the towers. I took a lot of pictures. However, the Sagrada Familia is currently (and has been for some decades) under construction, so there are hideous cranes and construction looking things in my pictures. Some of the things that The Sagrada Familia is known for is the sculptures of the passion of Christ. There is a four by four block of numbers on the side of the church. Left and right, up and down, diagonally, and many other combinations (such as the four in the corners and Z patterns) (310 to be exact), all add up to 33, which was the age Christ was when he died. It was all very beautiful and awesome.

The Sagrada Familia... at a distance because it's hard to get the whole thing in one picture unless you're at a distance. That's me standing in front of it and that sandy looking patch at the bottom is usually filled with water creating a gorgeous pond that reflects the church, but it's drained right now to conserve water...

We left The Sagrada Familia and headed to the Casa Milá, another work of Gaudi. It is a very stylish apartment building, completed in 1912. After being restored in the 90's, some of the apartments were rented out for 6,000 euro a month, which is insane. We were able to see the lobby, one of the top floor apartments styled in early 1900's decor and furniture, the attic, which is kind of a museum and tribute to Gaudi's work, and the rooftop terrace with all kinds of gorgeous sculptures and views of the city.

The Casa Milá. Gaudí liked to use curvy architecture and iron, but iron was kind of considered lower class so he made it into nice designs.

The roof of The Casa Milá. That tiny building in the far background through the arch is the Sagrada Familia. It was much more impressive seeing it off the roof than in this picture.

After The Casa Milá, we went to see the Casa Batlló. It is yet another building by Gaudí. By this time I was beginning to think that the only good things about Barcelona were Gaudí's works. And for the most part, I still believe this. It's not true, but I didn't get to see enough of the rest of the city to disprove it. Anyway, we didn't get to go into the Casa Batlló and I'm not even sure what it's being used for today, although I'm sure Javier (our tour guide and a teacher at our school) explained everything. The place is called the House of Bones because many of the designs look like bones and tendons and things. I noticed this in a lot of Gaudí's work, and being pre-med, it was pretty interesting. I wouldn't imagine that bone looking things would be beautiful.

After the Casa Batlló we headed for the plaza de Catalunya, which is the main plaza of Barcelona. This is where the Corte Ingles is (very important) and the Hard Rock, H&M, etc. Off one of the streets of the plaza is La rambla. A very long street with many many shops and little tent shops running all the way down the center. Pictures make it look much prettier in the summer when the trees have leaves, or the spring when the trees are in bloom. Some of the tent shops were weird. There were open-air pet stores, where you could buy chickens and bunnies and hamsters and birds and the like. There were flower shops, which made more sense to me. There were a lot of tourist shops. Barcelona in general is a very tourist-y town. I heard England-english and Australian-english in the short time I was there and this was in January/February when no one really wants to go.

Off La rambla is this insane market. It's called the Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria and it's this giant open area under a metal roof that sells tons and tons of foods, mostly fruits and vegetables and fish. There were also some pastry and candy places that looked amazing. Some of the weird things that we saw were still living shrimp and crabs that flailed about when the lady grabbed a handful and skinned sheep heads with the eyes still intact. If this place wasn't so tourist-y, it would have been an amazing place to shop for food. Some people bought smoothies that were being sold, but I passed. I wasn't feeling too well at this point because we were still marching around the city after being cramped in a bus and we hadn't used the bathroom or eaten since before 1pm and it was now after 7. 

La Boqueria. Only like 1/10 of one of hundreds of aisles in this place. It was amazing.

We snaked our way down a few narrow side streets full of shops and made from stone to a small plaza that I forget the name with some important buildings that I forget the name. It was too hard to listen to our tour guide at this point and I think he had stopped asking the graduate students to translate for him. Then we walked past (but not down) Carrer D'Avinyó, the brothel on this street inspired Picasso to paint "Les Demoiselles de Avignon".

We made a few more stops at plazas that I can't remember very well (Plaza del Rei and something else with big buildings with guards). 

Our last stop, basically, was at the Cathedral. The Cathedral may have been gorgeous, but with the entire front of the building obscured by construction materials, I couldn't tell you for sure. I didn't even bother taking any pictures. The inside was nice, but all of the cathedrals are beginning to look the same. I took a few pictures here and there, but I was ready to head back by that time. Mi madre always feeds me after 2pm and then by 9, so when it was after 9 and I hadn't eaten since before 1, I was beginning to feel a bit sick. Not to mention that I still had to use the bathroom. But there is no stopping when Javier gets going.

I managed to hop into a restroom at a Cafe when we made it back to Plaza de Catalunya and were waiting for the bus. We were wondering why the bus wasn't there yet when we realized that most of the streets around the plaza were shut down for... A PARADE? At 9-something at night? Really? We had to continue our march out of the plaza to a place where the bus could get through and then take a half an hour bus ride to the hotel, which was disappointingly situated well outside of Barcelona in a small, dead town. 

Dinner at the hotel was some manicotti-like noodles stuffed with tuna? It wasn't very good, but I've learned just to eat whatever it is. Only the milk is still making me sick these days. The tuna was almost gritty tasting, but I ignored it because I was starving. Second course (what? there is a second course?) was some kind of fake steak and french fries. I was hoping there would be a second course because I was still hungry after the first course and not very happy about it. Desert was natural yogurt, which, if anyone has ever had natural yogurt, you know that it is disgusting. Intense sour flavoring without a hint of sugar. Luckily, they gave us giant packets of sugar with our natural flavor yogurt, and I used both, and it wasn't that bad after that.

That night, about 8 of us located pretty much the only bar in this tiny town where our hotel was, which I never did learn the name of. The bar was like an Irish Pub and besides being packed with people, the only spark of life in this dead little town. I was a little concerned at first because a bottle of beer was 6 some euro and I don't even like beer, so I asked the bartender how much the tequila was (my favorite) and she said 1 euro, so I was set for the night. I hung out with some really nice people that night and had a fantastic time. When I got home, rather late, I took what had to have been a 40 minute shower and it was amazing. It felt so good. I shaved my legs probably three times since that has been all but impossible to manage in my 5 minute showers at the piso. The hotel was actually pretty nice. It was kind of weird because we had rooms with two single beds, but they were pushed together like one giant bed, but no complaints. Free internet, comfy mattress. I was very very comfortable. 

For breakfast, we had a buffet. I ate a lot. I figured, free food, why not? I loved it, but apparently everyone said it was terrible. I ate a good three bowls of cocoa puffs cereal, a napolitana, two rolls with olive oil, salt, and tomato, and two pieces of tortilla española. It wasn't necessary to eat again until dinner. When we got to Barcelona, we stopped at a few places on MontJuïc. We saw Calatrava's Olympic telecommunications tower, which was a giant almost sword looking thing. We stopped at the Catalan Art Museum, this gigantic looking castle place, but we only walked in the front entry and then out again. We stopped for 20 minutes at the Olympic Stadium from 1992, the year the Olympics were in Barcelona. Not a bad morning. I don't think it had started raining yet anyway. Maybe only some sprinkles.

View from MontJüic. See the clouds?

Next we went to see my favorite part of the trip: Park Güell. It was raining by this time, but there 

were a lot of places to stand under. We passed by this guy selling earrings and I wanted to buy some, but Javier was already out of sight by this time and I had to run to catch up. At the park were these mosaic looking lizard statues, beautiful. I got my picture next to it. This is also a Gaudí place, by the way. There are these curvy benches that overlook the city. It's really a beautiful place and we didn't spend nearly as much time there as I would have liked. 

Me at the Park Güell. I'm sitting on the curvy benches. It's raining in this picture, by the way.

Then is was free time. We wandered around the Plaza de Catalunya for awhile, looking for a place to eat, even though I wasn't hungry and didn't want to eat. Then we wandered around stores for awhile. I bought a Barcelona t-shrit for 8 euro. It was actually a kids t-shirt, but I demanded that I wanted one and the guy found me one that fit. It was pouring by this time and I was soaked and miserable. I had brought an umbrella to Barcelon, but I had asked my roommate that morning if I should bring it and she said no, so I left it in my room, for some reason. I really wish that I hadn't. I was absolutely miserable. Then we had the option to go to the Picasso museum and I wanted to go, but someone else wanted to go to the Sagrada Familia to go inside and climb the towers. I figured that would be an amazing experience, so I went along instead. Well, after 3 euro round-trip metro ride to get there, then 9 euro entrance fee, it was 2.50 euro to ride the elevator. So I was like, whatever, let's pay to ride the elevator. But the elevator was closed for the night. It was really disappointing. The inside of the church was decent looking enough, but not 9 euro worth of decent. Oh, well. Live and learn. Like never leave your umbrella behind. After the church, we went back to the plaza to have dinner at the Hard Rock. I've now eaten at Hard Rock Madrid and Hard Rock Barcelona since I've been on this trip. I'll never dislike their spicy mac and cheese. 

Free time seemed like it would never end. I was soaked. My feet were soaked. It was miserable and we spent probably 10 hours walking around in the rain. I was cold and miserable. I hated Barcelona at this point. I spent the last probably 2 hours wandering around the Corte Ingles, where I bought some earrings that I really like. Finally, the bus arrived. Many people decided to stay in Barcelona to go out for the nightlife, but I didn't want to do anything but go back to the hotel, where I ran into Carla and her roommate having a hot foot soak in soapy water. I joined them and began to feel better. Then, after a 30 minute shower, I went back to their room to watch the Latin music video channel and relax. When they went to bed, I headed down to my tutor's room where I hung out with him, his roommate, and her friend where I had a glass of cheap wine and some cookies. It was fantastic. Probably one of the bigger highlights of my trip.

I slept like a rock, again, and over-ate at breakfast, again. I thought that we were just heading back to Alcala when we all piled on the bus with our stuff, but no. We had to stop at the Palau de la Música Catalana where we got a guided tour. It was pretty, don't get me wrong, but I was exhausted. We sat in these comfy seats and the guide turned on some organ music. I was asleep in seconds. Then I was trying not to fall asleep as she was talking, but when you hardly understand someone talking about something not all that interesting, it's very hard not to sleep. On the bus ride, finally, I watched Mystic River in spanish. I was very very proud of myself because I followed almost all of the movie. Of course, they had spanish subtitles on and I can read spanish much much easier than listening to it. If the subtitles hadn't been on, there would have been no way I could have followed it. It was a pretty good movie, but I was motion sick by the end of it. I guess Sean Penn (?) won an award for the movie. I recommend it anyway, except that someone said that at one point they have really really thick Boston accents and it's kind of hard to understand them in English, which I obviously didn't experience. 

Lunch was cookies and chips, neither very good, but I wasn't in the mood for a plate of spaghetti like some people ate. I slept a bit more. I thought that I wasn't sleeping, but when I saw Madrid 135 and then we were in Alcala like 10 minutes later, I knew I must have fallen asleep.

Anyway. What did I learn? Never forget my Rick Steve's book again. Never go anywhere without an umbrella. Only wear old socks because my shoes leak dye when they are wet. I will never grow tired of tequila and drinking tequila garners respect from most college students. The Corte Ingles, with its 7 floors, does not believe in bathrooms. I do not like the chocolate here as much as chocolate in the states. I would rather give up chocolate than never have a hot shower ever again. My wish that Barcelona wasn't our first trip so that I would know what I was getting into better and therefore could plan better was a very legitimate wish. I love window seats.

There, that's about it. This took forever to write and I refuse to proofread it, so sorry about that. Now I basically have to write it again on a much smaller scale, in Spanish for my classes. Fun!

In Progress: Barcelona

I'm very exhausted from Barcelona. We didn't get back until late Sunday and I had homework and school and everything since. I'm working on a blog post all about it, but it's slow going and I'm exhausted. I'll try to have it up by tomorrow.