and the world spins madly on.

it's been a long week of classes and i have been busy....which is why i haven't said hello for a while. i have gotten into so much of a routine that i honestly feel like i live here now. i wake up in the mornings, take a shower, do some homework in my room, fun read, go to lunch, get to school early to enjoy the air conditioning, have classes, come back and eat dinner then do whatever the others are doing that night. its pretty routine, but if you know me, i like routine. and life here has become freakishly routine that i honestly feel like just another spaniard going about my life.
i went to the store the other day to get some sunny delight juice (man, its been years since i have seen that stuff, let alone buy it!) and i put it in my fridge by my room to have in the mornings. im not positive.....but i think that our cleaning lady....rosa....might be takin some of my sunny D. ummmmmm.......what do i say to that???? may be she doesnt know its mine and may be she thinks the other cleaning lady brought it??? haha. whatever. if sunny D helps her get by in the morning, i can deal with that ;)
i've never been in a place where a big celebration has occurred because of a sports victory such as a world series, an NBA championship, or even a world cup. but now i can say that i have been...even though it wasn't my city or country celebrating...oh well. it still counts!
but i must say its pretty neat being surrounded by the enthusiasm and energy of a sports victory. its even neat being here after they won the world cup and seeing what life is like after its all said and done. there is still spanish pride in the air, and that makes me very happy to see.
tuesday night i went out for tapas and drinks with my greek girls who leave tomorrow. :( :( :( i JUST learned that tapas are NOT a SPAIN thing....they are ONLY a GRANADA thing. WHAT?! blew my mind. for those of you who may not know what "tapas" are, basically, if you go to a bar that says they serve "tapas" (which is their word for appetizer) and you go there and order ANY drink, they will bring you a FREE appetizer (tapa) with your drink. any appetizer of your choice. rice, noodles, pasta, chicken, delicious bread, etc. so if you are there with say 4 other people, you will get 5 appetizer dishes, one for each of you. all for the price of just 1 drink per person! it is AWESOME!!!
so we went out and had those at this cute little place just down the street from where we live. we walked in and flower designs were all over the walls and the floors and the main colors were white, pink and purple. you would assume that women owned the place or that it catered to the female crowd. nope. there were definately only men workers and there were plenty of men customers. many guys i know from the states wouldnt have wanted to step foot in that place, let alone work there! hahaha.
we walked one of the girls we knew back home that night. it was around 1 a.m. im not trying to scare you mom and dad, but, walking that night was the first actual time that i have felt legitimately unsafe. luckily there was me and 3 other girls, but, there was this eerie feel to the night and it was unsettling. i actually decided to take my camera and keys out of my little wallet i was carrying around and stuff them in my shirt. that left just 5 euro in my wallet that anyone could take if they decided to rob us.
i think that part of the reason i got so scared was because my friend allison told me that one of the girls who lived in our dorm last month was robbed right outside our dorm door. they chased her down the street and took her phone and money.
i guess you can never let your guard down completely, even if you think you feel totally safe.
luckily we got back ok that night and i kinda thought twice about walking around the streets again with just girls at that hour :/
wednesday i had to get up early because my 8 p.m. art history class was rescheduled to a time earlier in the day. we were going on a field trip!!! ah....it brought me back to the good ol elementary days! :)
little did i know where we were actually going that day!
i met my class outside school and we walked to "La Capilla Real" - - the church where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella are buried!!!!! these people are HUGE in our history!! they reunited spain under the banner of Christianity and were able to reform the country which eventually became known as being one of Europe's best adminstered countries. i couldnt believe we were going there and i was psyched because i got in for free with my class! another thing on my to do list was being accomplished as part of school. sweet.
the church was of course beautiful. but what made me upset was when i walked in and saw a sign that said "no pictures." shoot. im ganna have to sneak them because i am NOT going to pass up a picture of ferdinand and isabella's burial site.
i walked around the church and was taking pictures without my flash. i felt like my mom. whenever our family would go to europe, about half of the places did not allow photography. but did that stop deb? nope. whats it ganna hurt!? right? ;)
i took a picture of the burial site that sat above them and after i did, i looked over and a man who worked there looked at me and said, "no no no."
whoops! sorry! i mean, im not sorry i took the picture, im sorry you caught me. ;)
luckily he was really nice about it and didnt throw me out or something. there i would have been on a field trip with my class and my teacher looks over and sees me getting escorted out of the building. hahahaha.
i was able to get a picture of their actual coffins which sat in this creepy underground area. yes! successfully sneak a picture even after the security guy told me not to: check!
we left the church and of course there were a ton of shopping places nearby and i had to get a few more things for family and friends. when i went to the cash register to pay, she rung this one item up that i DID NOT realize the price was as high as it was, so i kindly told her i didnt want it anymore.
ok. heres a few "heads up" tips for you all the next time you are in spain.
1. they DO NOT speak english here. their old ruler/"dictator" - - Franco, actually forbid them to learn any other language except spanish. it just was not ok to know anything else. so, though he has been dead for quite some time, the aftermath of his reign still affects people here today as several of them still DO NOT KNOW ENGLISH. and thats totally ok! im not the selfish american who wants or needs everyone in the world to know english. thats why i am here learning spanish. BUT.... i will say....if you own a souvenir shop or a restaurant....and you mainly attract american tourists who most likely only speak english....it might be beneficial for you to know a few words in english if you want to more successfully sell your product. just a thought.
so if any of you go to spain- i HIGHLY recommend you speak spanish, bring someone who speaks spanish, or bring along one heck of a spanish dictionary.
2. when you go up to the register to buy your merchandise, make sure you want ALL of it and know how much each one costs. because once you set that stuff on the counter, there is NO turning back.
why do i say this? well, when i set the stuff down and realized how much one of them was AFTER she rang it up, (i assumed it was a certain price but i was caught way off guard when i did see the actual price) i told her i didnt have enough money for it. which i honestly didnt. she stopped, looked at me and said in spanish, "well i cant erase it. why dont you want it?" and i tried to explain to her that i didnt have the money and i didnt know it was that expensive. and as i was trying to tell her this, she was just standing there like i was just the most inconvenient person she has ever come across. like, how dare i decide i dont want to buy something!!!! what will she do now?!?! i asked her if she could simply erase the one item and keep going with the other stuff i wanted. she said no, it was not possible. ummmmm...... why not??? i kept thinking. oh well. i didnt want to get in this huge spanish argument because i knew i wouldnt get anywhere because i wouldnt even be able to argue in the language! hahaha. luckily she worked it out somehow and didnt make me pay for it. but sheeeeesh, next time, check once, twice and a third time what you are getting and how much money you have.
i just couldnt stay out of trouble with the spaniards that day! ;)
thursday morning i woke up to this terrible beeping sound. like anyone can be in the morning, i was disoriented and started checking my fan to see if it was my fan making this incredibly loud beeping sound. how could my tiny fan make such a loud sound?! well, in my head, it was totally my fan, and i didnt know why it kept making the sound after i had turned it off. after a few minutes of utter confusion, i realized, oh, it wasnt my fan, it was coming from outside :)
i then got a little nervous because i then went into freak out mode and thought "oh no! is one of the buildings' fire alarms going off?! is there a fire?! can i get out of here!?"
i lifted the window and went out on our balcony and saw a bunch of people standing outside one of the clothing stores near our dorm. there was no emergency, everyone looked fine and i didnt see fire ;) apparently it was just the security alarm going off and apparently they COULD. NOT. TURN. IT. OFF. it went off for about a half an hour. yes. nonstop. loud. obnoxious.
though this made me quite frustrated because i had only gotten about 4 hours of sleep thus far, i couldnt help but laugh because this type of thing is soooo customary for spain. its really no big deal for a store alarm to go off for a half an hour, even if it disturbs the entire street. no one really cares. man, this laid back spaniard lifestyle is just not jiving with my high strung american way of life! ;)
i went to school and got a lot done. i have this huge art history midterm on tuesday which i am SUPER nervous for. eeeeeek! so i have been busy preparing for that.
one of the girls in my classes told me she wasnt going to be in class on monday because she is going para gliding. do any of you know what that is? well, its para sailing, except, rather than it being over water, you glide over a MOUNTAIN. when she told me that, i without thinking said, "WHAT?!?!!?!??! I WANNA GO!!!!"
turns out you pay this company to come pick you up, bring you to the top of the sierra nevada mountain range, they run off the top of the mountain with you, you glide at a starting altitude of about 10,000 feet then fall for a good 20 minutes, then they take you back to the city. sounds like a thrill, count me in.
when i heard this, i thought of my friend martha back home who i know would be here in a heartbeat to do this with me ;)
so i need to figure things out with that, but, i am pretty sure i will be flying over the sierra nevadas on monday evening rather than being in class.....hm....is it ok if i skip class one day.....? um, yeah.
on my way home from classes, i turned this corner and i SWEAR TO YOU....i SWEAR...i saw my friend maddie. my heart literally dropped in excitement. she was tall and had long dark hair and was wearing sunglasses just like maddie would. i literally had this smile on my face and i about went running to this random girl, who, turned out not to be maddie. but boy, at that moment, i realized how much i missed her and how much i miss those i love back home. :)
i got back from classes and my greek girls came running up to me and said, "eat quick! were going to a flamenco show tonight!!!!" um, ok!!!
so i ate quickly and we took off to go get tickets for the flamenco show.
we got our tickets and had to wait for it to start, so we went and got tapas at a nearby restaurant. throughout the night, fabricio (from brazil) and eva (from greece) proceeded to ask allison (from texas) if she: owned a horse, liked country music and if she had met george bush. hahahaha.
allison is quite the comedian so she responded, "why the hell would you think i own a horse?! just cuz i live in texas does not mean i own a horse! i've never even been on a horse! and country music?! i HATE country music! and george bush?! UGH i DO NOT like him!!! i am pretty much the only democrat in texas but i dont care!! but.... he actually does live in the neighborhood next to mine....."
hahahaha!! oh allison i love you.
fabricio and allison then proceeded to have an argument solely over the topic about why soccer is called soccer in the U.S. to fabricio, it made no sense. to allison, it did. fabricio said, "what does soccer have to do with the sport!? you use your feet with a ball! it should be called football in america!!" then allison said "well then if you are going to get that critical, then you should make every sport like that. like calling volleyball handball or something!" listening to that argument that lasted about 10 minutes was almost the best and most comical part of my day.
we headed back to where the flamenco show was and went inside.
for any of you who do not know flamenco, its basically a very sexy, highly individualized dance that is extremely popular in spain. i HIGHLY recommend you see one whenever you can. it (usually) consists of a female dancer, a male dancer, a guitarist and then 2 or 3 other males/females who clap a certain beat and yell out random spanish words. its actually quite sexy and beautiful, believe me.
we walked into the place where the show was and, whoa. it was this tiny little area that pretty much was like a hallway. it was about 12 feet in width and 12 feet high. then it was about 150 feet long. only about 30 people could fit into this tiny area for the show.
it was extremely personal and every person in there could hear and see perfectly and you could almost smell the perfume the dancer wore.
the show started at midnight (totally normal start time for a thursday night show in spain. no big deal, right?) and for the entire time, i just sat there in this tiny, somewhat claustrophobic area watching this foreign, culturally rich dance unfold in front of my very own eyes.
little did i know that after what seemed like 20 minutes, the show was already ending. "it couldnt already be done..." i thought.
looked at my watch and it read 1:30.
only the culture of spain can seem to put me into the trance i was in during that show.
absolutely awesome.