woke up early saturday morning super excited for a fun filled weekend at the Mediterranean Sea. who could ask for more?
hopped on the bus with the group and drove the hour and a half to the coast.
before reaching our hotel, we stopped at some sweet underground caves. man, i wish you could have seen them. i just dont understand how these caves (let alone anything on this earth) is so perfectly handcrafted the way they are. my main question to this world is: how can you think there is not a God who took so much time creating this for US? blows my mind.
got back on the bus and it dropped us off right at the hotel. the street had only one lane so the bus driver stopped in it and had us all get out there and insisted we take our time getting our bags out of the trunk. as we were doing so, i noticed that a HUGE back-up of cars began to form behind us because we were blocking the lane. the only lane.
the cars starting honking and people started yelling and here were 10 americans just takin our time gettin our bags out of the bus rather than pulling over to do it. "typical americans," im sure they thought ;)
ok. out of all of you- how many of you pronounce the word "bag," - "beg," as in "i beg you to do this for me!" ??? say it to yourself, how do you pronounce it?
i SWEAR there are other people in the pacific northwest who incorrectly pronounces that word the way i do!
ok, well, as you can may be guess, i am the only one of all of us over here who pronounces that word in that way. and boy, i cannot seem to hear the end of it. whenever i say the word, which oddly enough, has been often, everyone just starts laughing and goes, "katie! its not beg! its bag!!"
UGH SHOOT!!!! i need my friend danielle, the speech therapist to get over here and help me change this! or else i will not hear the end of it!
but hey, aileen cant talk because apparently those from philly pronounce the word water- "wurtur." i try and laugh and tell her she is pronouncing it the wrong way each time she says it, but, everyone seems to find my mispronunciation funnier. whatever ;)
wow. now, for this little getaway, i brought my mini fan just in case the hostel would be real real hot like it is in our room in granada. well, i underestimated our program i guess. as i walked inside the hotel, i honestly thought, "this couldnt be where were staying...its too nice!" it was right on the sandy mediterranean beach and the lobby had marble floors and amazingly comfy waiting room furniture. YES!
went up to our rooms which were on the 4th floor. monica and i took the stairs. monica took the stairs (because she is active like that) and so did i! but not to be active, but mostly because i have a TINY fear of elevators. ESPECIALLY the TINY european ones. (oh, and i cannot forget, and neither can the 15 other girls who were there that day, on my 21st birthday party night, we pretty much almost got stuck in one as it started beeping and the doors started closing when only half of us were out of it. but, maddie came to the rescue ;). so anyways....long story short-not a fan of elevators. yes, i'll take the stairs.
got to the 4th floor and walked into our room and there it was. right when you walked into the room, the windows stood there, shades open, and the Mediterranean was right there in site. "SWEET!!!!!!" is what monica said. i couldnt agree more. here we were- in spain, studying abroad, at the beach, standing in our amazing hotel room (which i must add, did have AWESOME air conditioning) looking out over the Mediterranean. "man, were 2 spoiled biatches" is all i could say. monica agreed.
we threw on our suits and ran to the beach!!!! YES!
OUCH!!!!! right when i stepped on the beach, i felt it. BURN. wow. let me tell you something readers- if you go to spain, i recommend you bring some type of sandals that are easy to walk on the beach in. why you ask? well, the beaches in spain are LOVELY, dont get me wrong. but....they do not consist of sand..the consist of ROCKS. but wait, before you start judging, let me say- they consist of very BEAUTIFUL rocks. like, smooth, almost marble-like rocks. if i had a bigger suitcase/didnt pack as many clothes as i did, i would take the entire beach home with me and i know you would enjoy staring at each one of those gorgeous rocks with me. so soft, obviously smoothed by the ocean currents.
HOWEVER.... the reason it hurt to step on these smooth rocks was because.....
well, let me ask, have you ever stepped on rocks that have been sitting in the sun for hours, just asking to get roasted by the sun? yes, those are the rocks that our feet had to step on in order to get around. as my friend ayla put it once, "its like stepping on a stove!!!"
so.....rather unfortunately, there were us americans, not walking to the water whenever we wanted to swim, but SPRINTING. sprinting as fast as our little feet would take us as they were not ok with the burning sensation from the rocks. hahaha. i would always laugh as i watched each one of us make our way to the beach going, "oh, ah! oh, ah! oh, ah!" as if those words help the burning feeling go away. but of course i would stop laughing once i had to make the sprint ;)
ok. if you havent heard anything i have said yet on this blog, here this:
if you EVER, EVER, EVER get the chance to go to one place in the world- please choose anywhere where you can go to swim in the Mediterranean Sea. it is not only a refreshing/perfect temperature, but it is so clear that you can snorkel, AND..... (not many places can beat this next one), it is so salty that you can lay on your back in the water and literally take. a. nap. im not joking- i tried it. and it worked. im pretty sure i fell asleep for about 2 minutes until a wave woke me up. seriously- you can lay there on your back (or your stomach) and not move one. single. muscle. and still stay afloat with no problem. whats that for a vacation, huh? ;)
as i floated around and dove down to look at the wild life and the rocks, i kept getting the salty water in my mouth. not on accident though. it was because my mouth was open. why? because i couldnt stop smiling at the thought that i was swimming in the mediterranean sea. so amazing.
we spent the whole day at the beach. well, most of us did. the group slowly trickled down to where monica and i were the only ones left in the rays. "we're hard core" i said to her as we were still laying there at 7:30 p.m. soaking up the sun. "yeah we are. i mean common, its the mediterranean!!" she replied. so so so true.
we left the beach around 7:45 and went up to our awesome room to shower off the salt. as monica was in the shower, i just sat on our balcony, closed my eyes and listened to the waves crash on the shore while breathing in the sweet scent of the salty sea. i sat there taking it all in, considering myself one lucky 21 year old girl.
i was soooooo happy to be there that i decided to make my first (and probably last) call to the U.S. to make my family jealous ;)
monica was generous enough to let me borrow her phone. i called my house phone, no answer. then called my moms cell phone.
"hello???" (in a confused tone)
"mom??" i said.
"yeah???" (in another confused tone. i was the last person she thought she would be speaking on the phone with at that moment)
"hi...its your love bug" i said with a smile on my face.
"katie???!!?!?!?!!?" she asked with quite the excitement in her voice.
"yes. hi :) "
it was a good 4 and a half minute chat. so nice to hear her voice and im sure vis versa. i told her what i was doing at that moment (standing on the balcony looking out over the sea at sunset) and she told me that she would get our dad to take us back there someday. sounds good to me ;)
we had dinner as a group. buffet style. and boy, the best buffet i've ever had!!! so so so many options. we all had AT LEAST 2 plates. but i dont think anyone beat j.d,'s record of 5 plates. so so yummy!
we then walked around town together. its so beautiful there at night. walking around in a sleeveless dress at 11 at night is not a time when im going to complain about ANYTHING. we walked around and came to a look out place over the Sea that we had went to earlier in the day and i stood there and looked out over a sea of darkness. i was *this close* to taking out my camera, snapping a picture of the complete darkness and saying it was a picture of "the Mediterranean Sea...at night!" but i figured i shouldnt waste my time ;)
went back home, got a good nights sleep and actually slept with the covers OVER me rather than on the floor. dear person who invented air conditioning- thank you very much. love, katie.
woke up semi early sunday morning to meet for breakfast. (another great buffet! and this time, i had more than just toast!) and i woke up to monica being gone. where was she???? she soon got back to the room and informed me that she was out on the beach watching the sun come up and just enjoying the morning. sounds nice huh? well....not completely.....
you would think that would be a nice relaxing time....right? well...it was actually the opposite...
she goes on to inform me that while she was sitting on the beach, enjoying the cool breeze of the july morning, a younger spaniard male approached her and asked her if he could sit down. "no" she said (i would have done the same thing, all she wanted to do was enjoy the morning and not have anyone bother her!) he sat down anyway.
"do you have a boyfriend?" he asked her.
"yes" she replied (which you think would make him go away....well, not this guy...)
"well where is he?" he asked.
"back home." she simply responded.
"then who are you here with?" he nagged (obviously not getting the memo that she didnt want to talk to him).
"my friends." she informed him.
"can i have a kiss?" he asked (WHAT?! THIS GUY IS CRAZY!!!!)
"NO! LEAVE ME ALONE!" she responded angrily as she got up and walked away. more upset rather than creeped out.
luckily, he didnt follow her.
as she continued to enjoy her morning, she sensed someone behind her again. before she could turn around, a voice asked "what time is it?" (it was his voice again).
as she turned around to tell him, she noticed something very disturbing.
HE WAS STANDING THERE NAKED!!!!!!!!! ON A PUBLIC BEACH!!!!!!
too bad she did the nice thing and turned around to tell him the time. how was she supposed to know he would be NAKED?! she quickly turned around again and yelled, "LEAVE!!!!"
he ran off laughing like a young teenage boy.
now, monica was pretty ticked off about it all. but im sorry, i couldnt stop laughing. like, are you kidding me?!?! haha!!!
whats even more funny is that if he would have kept bothering her, im sure she would have used her black belt to scare him off.
in fact, i almost wish that would have happened. she would have (excuse my french) kicked. his. ass. the poor guy wouldnt have seen it coming. hahahaha too bad that didnt happen ;)
we checked out of our rooms, got on the bus, and headed to a different beach for the day. this one was definately much busier. and...... well..... had a lot of boobs.
yes, im telling the truth. it was a nudist beach..... haha.
everywhere. i. looked. i. saw. boobs. "ummmmmmm" we all kinda said laughing, but trying not to laugh too hard and look like a bunch of awkward american tourists. it was funny watching the guys because whenever women would walk by (or even run by, yes, it happened) they would kinda jet their eyes away, acting like they werent looking. common guys, we know you saw them ;)
after a few hours, it was time to meet up for lunch. we ate at this wonderful outdoor grill that had about 2 pans that were about 8 by 8 feet grilling the famous spanish "payella" dish. it basically consists of rice with a wonderful seasoning, shrimps and clams.
i sat by brett for the lunch and as they served the food, they served it with shrimp....but....it was shrimp with their little whiskers still attached and their heads along with those big black eyes. wouldnt doubt it if they were out swimming on the floor of the mediterranean about an hour ago. "um......i cant eat these." i just couldnt eat shrimp with their whiskers shooting up at me and their eyes just staring me down pretty much saying, "spare me, spare me!!" oh those poor things.
brett told me to chill out and that they were amazing and that it was no problem for him to take off their heads for me to eat. so, without me kindly rejecting his offer, he went on to say "see, now all you have to do is grab it and squeeze it like this..."
POOOOOOF.
at that moment, all eyes went on me as i sat there with the blood and guts of that very shrimp's head on my white sundress and yes...my arm.
"ew." was all i could seem to say.
"im so sorry!!!!!" brett said over and over.
"see....this is exactly why i didnt want to eat them! look at this blood!! and oh! i think this is its brain on my arm!!!"
as i wiped it off, i couldnt help but think that the shrimp was getting back at me for not being a vegan. hey! i tried! i wasnt going to eat it! well, that shrimp didnt seem to care.
we finished lunch and headed back out to the beach for free time for the rest of the day. and yes, i slowly got over the guts of the shrimp spewing out on me.
as the day went on, i got more used to seeing boobs. it almost didnt phase me anymore. until i saw this one british lady when i walked around the corner whose boobs pretty much hanged to her belly button (but this wasnt a good hang...). "wow....that is one confident woman" i thought to myself. turns out she was really nice as she ended up watching our bags for us at one point during the day when we all went exploring.
that brings me to my next story. ayla, j.d., brett and i decided to stay near the area with all the cliffs and caves as it was less busy. the other girls wanted to go back to where we were earlier in the day.
so, us 4 left our stuff (yes, we were gambling our precious belongings) with big boobed british woman and took off to explore the cliffs and caves. we swam over to a semi private beach where ayla and i started following the boys up this trail. ok.... so im in a bikini....with no shoes on...walking up this trail with glass, random rocks and sticks. hmmmm....i thought to myself... is this smart??? :/ oh well, im in spain.
we walked and walked and walked and my feet were starting to BURN on the rocks. we got to this point where we were walking on nothing but what seemed like God's creation of concrete mixed with the pointiest rocks you will ever feel. "ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch" i kept thinking to myself, yet keeping it in as i knew this would end up being worth it. we were getting close to the cliff when i saw something sliver into the bushes about 3 feet ahead of me.
yes, it was a snake. and not just some snake, but it was probably about 5 feet long. oh. my. gosh. the boys told us to stay away from the bush and the shade as thats where they like to be. "dont worry," brett said, "they dont like humans." yeah tell that to everyone who has been bitten by a snake!
we finally got to a cliff where we could jump off into the clear blue sea. YES! i thought to myself....never so excited to go jump off a cliff...haha
ayla and i stood at about a 25 foot jump area while the boys went over to a 30 foot jump area. j.d. went first to test the depth and said we were good to go. ayla and i looked at each other almost reading each others minds "whose going first?"
when im nervous about things, i tend to just like to get them out of the way. not that jumping into the mediterranean sea is something i want to "get out of the way" but, jumping off a 25 + foot cliff is a little unsettling.
so, with that, before saying anything, i just jumped. there i went.
i landed in the water with a splash, preparing myself to half way lose my swimsuit (girls, you know what its like).
the jump ended up being a thrill and i definately wanted to do it again. the other 2 jumped and then we went off to explore a cave we saw off in the distance. we swam over there and saw that it went pretty far back. as we were swimming into it, the waves started getting a little strong as the current of a huge sea was flowing into this tiny cave. we made it onto a rock and looked around. j.d. went over into this dark area where he said he saw some unrecognizable type of writings on the wall. cool.
we jumped back in the water and swam over to the place we had previously jumped off.
this is where it gets interesting.
the guys saw these tiny holes where hands had smoothed the rock and decided that we should all climb up this rock to get back up on top to then be able to jump off again.
ok. im all for jumping again...but....i dont really feel like tackling this 15 foot vertical rock... in a bikini. well, too bad. they had already started climbing.
not so fair though because j.d. is about 6 foot 5 and brett is like this little monkey that can climb anything. so there was ayla and i, both about 5 foot 5 and there in the water staring up this rock that the guys keep saying, "you can totally climb this!!!"
yeah. frickin. right.
j.d. jumps back in the water to help us. ayla goes first. tries a couple times and definately fails as she would get up a few feet and fall backwards back into the water.
"ok...." i kept thinking...."this is kind of hard core." hahaha. "and kind of dangerous...." those prickly rocks with barnicoles attached to each inch of them wasnt exactly like the climbing wall back at school.
after a few attempts, some major effort on her part, and help by some shoving of the butt done by j.d., ayla made it to the top. "shoot. now i have to do this." i thought.
"ok katie. your in spain. climb up this damn rock!!!!" ;)
i tried once. OUCH!!!!!! those barnacles seemed to bite at the edge of my toe. i fell back in the water.
tried again. POOOOOSH. a huge wave shoved me up against the rock and i let go of my grip and fell back in.
ok katie. come. on.
i look up at ayla and kind of shake my head and she goes, "katie!!! you're in spain! if it takes some blood and cuts- it will be worth it!!"
"ugh i hate this because i know she is right!" i thought.
i go for a third time. j.d. yells to me, "wait for the rush!!! wait for the wave to push you up!!!!" and as i wait for the perfect time, i thrust myself up, pull with ALL. MY. MIGHT. and make it higher than i had the previous 2 times. but i still wasnt done. i was stuck in an awkward position in the hardest part of the climb. "COME ON. DO THIS!!!!" i thought.
suddenly, i felt a hand on my butt as another wave came and i was pushed higher as i lifted my left leg above where my hands gripped to then pull me up.
ok. wait a minute. what is that touching my butt???
oh, thanks for the push j.d.!!!!! :/ hahahaha
pretty sure when i had my left leg extended above my arms, (i tend to be quite flexible in extenuating circumstances), j.d. got a perfect shot of about half my butt as my swim suit was definately not doing its job.
"sorry j.d.!!!!!" i yelled.
"no problem!!! your so close!!!!!!" he yelled back.
i made it. i actually made it. YES!!!!!!!!
climb a vertical cliff in the mediterranean: check.
i stood on top of that cliff with so much pride.
at that moment, i felt pride was something i deserved to feel ;)
as i stood up there around 5 p.m., knowing we had to leave soon, i just looked out over the water and over that cliff i had just conquered and once again smiled at the sea. this. is. too. cool. what an awesome weekend it's been.
ouch. what is that?
i looked down and my forearm and my toes were bleeding from the climb. ayla was right though, a few cuts and some blood was totally worth it.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
off to swim in the mediterranean :]
today in class i was really thrown off because my professor announced to the class that i look like the singer "kesha." ok.... not a huge compliment because she is kinda a crazy person, and personally, i think she looks weird. oh well, im sure my professor meant for it to be a compliment....hehe.
but....i can attribute the song "your love is my drug" to her- which has been stuck in my head for about a week now since all they play in stores over here is american music ;)
we went out for these awesome fruity drinks tonight that were HUGE. wow. so filling. luckily i had monica to help me with it.
while we were there, i had to use the bathroom.... but shoot.... i forgot... sometimes bathrooms here dont have toilet paper... like, they just dont provide it. so, they say its always a good idea to bring toilet paper with you when you go out. well, i guess i forgot to pack my toilet paper because i definately needed it tonight when i went to the bathroom. luckily allison was outside the door waiting (because did i mention, there was no lock on the door? haha) and i said "uh....allison.....is there any toilet paper....?" and she goes, "nope. nada. here ya go!" and i turn around and her little hand is propped into the stall with some napkins in it. hahahaha! "allison! where did you get these?!" she replied, "oh, i carry them around in my purse for times like these! take them!" thanks for saving my butt allison, literally ;)
tonight i had to say goodbye to my girls from greece. i definately shed a few tears. they are two of the sweetest girls i have ever known. i told them i would come visit them in greece as soon as i can. next stop, perhaps? ;)
now i have to leave for the night as monica and i have some packing to do for this weekend. we are going to a little beach city right on the southern coast of spain called "nerja." it is supposedly one of the most beautiful beaches in spain to visit. can't wait. as if i havent seen enough beautiful places here. so time for some R&R and sun tanning. swimsuit and A LOT of sunblock: check.
mediterannean sea - here i come.
but....i can attribute the song "your love is my drug" to her- which has been stuck in my head for about a week now since all they play in stores over here is american music ;)
we went out for these awesome fruity drinks tonight that were HUGE. wow. so filling. luckily i had monica to help me with it.
while we were there, i had to use the bathroom.... but shoot.... i forgot... sometimes bathrooms here dont have toilet paper... like, they just dont provide it. so, they say its always a good idea to bring toilet paper with you when you go out. well, i guess i forgot to pack my toilet paper because i definately needed it tonight when i went to the bathroom. luckily allison was outside the door waiting (because did i mention, there was no lock on the door? haha) and i said "uh....allison.....is there any toilet paper....?" and she goes, "nope. nada. here ya go!" and i turn around and her little hand is propped into the stall with some napkins in it. hahahaha! "allison! where did you get these?!" she replied, "oh, i carry them around in my purse for times like these! take them!" thanks for saving my butt allison, literally ;)
tonight i had to say goodbye to my girls from greece. i definately shed a few tears. they are two of the sweetest girls i have ever known. i told them i would come visit them in greece as soon as i can. next stop, perhaps? ;)
now i have to leave for the night as monica and i have some packing to do for this weekend. we are going to a little beach city right on the southern coast of spain called "nerja." it is supposedly one of the most beautiful beaches in spain to visit. can't wait. as if i havent seen enough beautiful places here. so time for some R&R and sun tanning. swimsuit and A LOT of sunblock: check.
mediterannean sea - here i come.
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.
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.
Monday, July 12, 2010
world champions.
july 12. this particular day has been an eventful day in my life. i have had some great times on this day, some not so great times, and then i have been in spain. so a little bit of everything. but when i woke up today and realized it was july 12, i thought back on those days for a little bit. crazy how life doesnt seem to wait around for you.
i woke up sunday morning with a nervous feeling. why? oh thats right, its world cup game day. oh no, here we go again. but only one more game spain. one more. and you have it. the "spanish curse" will be broken.
supposedly there is this german octopus that has predicted every single major soccer game correctly for several years except for ONE. legend is that they put 2 different tanks of food in his area of habitat and you designate one tank to say, for example, spain, and then the other tank to say, for example, the netherlands. whichever tank the octopus chooses to eat the food from is the team that will win the game that day. the octopus chose the tank that was designated to spain. hm, interesting. everyone liked the idea of it, but no one wanted to jinx anything. i kinda laughed at it all ;)
monica and i slept in on sunday after the long travel day in sevilla on saturday and the late night out. we got up and mosied around for a bit and then watched the office together. funny story. neither of us had EVER watched the office or were interested in it until spring quarter of this last school year. we BOTH started watching it from SEASON 1 at the BEGINNING of SPRING quarter. how crazy is that?! we thought it was funny.
we then got ready for the pool and made the 20 minute walk down the quiet streets to the pool. i had not yet been to the pool but when i got there, whoa. what a sweet pool it was. it was an olympic sized pool with blue water that was crystal clear. perfect for another 100 degree + day. we layed our towels out and read for a little then got too hot to stay in the sun, so we made our way to the pool. we swam around and chatted and monica got out again while i stayed in. i was hanging out at the edge of the pool when this younger spaniard guy approached me and began talking to me. "ugh...." is what i thought because im the last girl that wants someone to interrupt me when im relaxing in a pool on a hot day. "just leave me alone....." is what i thought. turns out the guy was only semi creepy and we had a good conversation, all in spanish. he spoke probably about 20 words of english. so that forced me to step up my spanish game. about 10 minutes into the conversation he said, "you speak spanish very well." wait, WHAT?! YES!!!!!!!! no one has ever told me that. YAY! mission accomplished. get a compliment from a spaniard about my spanish speaking: check.
after a few hours, i decided to head back home to get ready for the big game. as i was walking back by myself, i realized how quiet the streets were. it was another day where the tension that was to come was just looming over the city. i thought to myself, "ha, if they win tonight, the streets will look NOTHING like this!" ;)
got home, put my Xavi camiseta (jersey) on and headed out the door for one of the bars we were meeting the group at.
we sat down and the bar quickly got crowded. pre game stuff was on and the announcers kept saying how they thought very highly of spains team, but that they weren't sure if they would be able to pull it off for the night. this is when my hands started to sweat and my legs wouldnt stop shaking. i. was. so. nervous.
my dad once told me that when the mariners were in the playoffs in 1995, he remembered sitting in our living room watching the game and being soooo nervous that his hands were dripping sweat because of the intensity of the game.
well, fortunately, mine were not DRIPPING sweat, but they were sure close. i must get the anxiety of watching sports from my dad because i swear, out of all of us girls, i was by far the one who was freaking out the most about this game. i was SO SO SO SO close to getting up out of that bar and watching the game from outside. i almost couldnt sit down because my feet kept shaking and my hands were getting sweaty. the only thing that kept me from walking out of that bar was the fact that the girls would have thought i was an idiot for being THAT nervous. "chill out katie, its just a game." yeah well tell my feet and hands that!
i honestly felt like i was like the mom of one of the players. so so so nervous for her son! i actually started thinking about the fact that i have always wanted boys and i started thinking that may be i shouldnt want to have boys because if i do then they will probably be athletic and play sports and i would have to go through this anxiety every week at their saturday morning soccer games. ay ay ay, i was a nervous wreck.
the game started and was on its way. ok. not only was i a nervous wreck for spain to win, but i was starting to get EXTREMELY upset at the netherlands' team. the fact that they thought spains players' feet were the ball about 37 times made me want to punch each one of them in the face. also, the fact that during one play, one of the players (oh whoopsies, "accidentally") confused alonso's CHEST FOR THE BALL, kicking him STRAIGHT ON IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CHEST KNOCKING THE WIND OUT OF HIM, just about made me scream and go grab that t.v. and throw it out the window. i was getting so frustrated with the netherlands' cheap shots, lack of class, terrible acting whenever they fell and just overall making this final game super physical. those frustrations made me want spain to win even more. for all of you out there who STILL wanted the netherlands to win after their pathetic unsportsmanlike behavior, i question your civility.
well, the 70 minute mark didnt prove to be spains time to take the lead in this game, so as i saw the 70 minute mark come and go, then the 80 minute mark, then the 90, i got even more heated. the last thing i wanted to see was a physically demanding sports match such as soccer end with penalty kicks. penalty kicks do nothing to prove the overall skill of team.
the game ends with the score: 0-0. oh gosh, overtime.
two 15 minute halves to come. then, if its still tied, penalty kicks. oh gosh bring on the randy olson sweaty hands.
the first half passes, still 0-0.
the second half comes, and its looking like it will go to penalty kicks. shoot.
oh wait.....
3 minutes left before penalty kicks, spain advances the ball down the field, baldie #6 gets the ball, shoots from a terribly difficult angle and, oh, wait, what?????
GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ESPANA IS UP 1-0!!!!!!!
i couldnt believe my eyes. did it actually happen? why yes, yes it did!
i jumped up probably about 3 feet into the air and freaked out, as did everyone else in that bar. i got so excited that the watch around my wrist FLEW OFF ME and landed somewhere i couldnt find. after celebrating for a bit, i started walking around the dark bar in search of the watch that has been one of my best friends while here. i literally couldnt find it! i made my way to the OTHER SIDE OF THE BAR and found it up against the wall, about 15 feet from where i was standing. oops. well hey, i was excited.
now all spain had to do was hold the lead for another 3 minutes. COME. ON. YOU. CAN. DO. IT.
game over, spain wins.
YES!!!!
wow, is this actually happening?
last December, i couldnt decide where i wanted to study abroad. i was torn between ireland, the safe option. the country that spoke english and had a ton of hot irish men to speak in english with. or, spain, the country that was definately the risky option. the country that didnt speak english but yes, did speak the language i was studying, but oh wait, they spoke it with this "extremely difficult accent that makes spanish in spain much different than spanish in the U.S."
what was it that told me to go to spain? to this day, i dont know. but one day, after being absolutely torn for quite some time, i just remember saying, "meh. im goin to spain."
nice choice, katie.
funny how i am here for this short window of time and spain wins their first world cup ever. sweet. timing like that doesnt always happen. i am very fortunate.
we took some pictures in the bar, the bartender brought around free shots for everyone, then we left to go join the party in the streets. and, well, basically anywhere you ended up, there was a party.
right when we got out onto the street, we once again, heard the faint noises of honking, screaming, and oh whats that? fireworks? yes, fireworks, too. ohhhhhhhhh gosh!
we made our way around the mobs of people, literally, mobs of people. everyone and their dog (seriously) were out on the streets. i saw plenty of 2-7 year old kids out celebrating too at 11 at night, because if you didnt know, in spain, it is absolutely customary for kids ages 2-whatever to be out well past midnight. soooo weird to see.
we walked around for about an hour and made our way to one of the more popular squares in town. streets were closed to traffic and the police were out everywhere. they closed off one of the main fountains because people have climbed up it during celebrations before. but their attempts to close it off had failed as i saw people running by the policemen to climb to the top of the fountain to stake the spanish flag. about 5 had made it up successfully and eventually were pulled down by the cops and hauled away to who knows where.
i was sad i didnt get to experience the fireworks on the 4th of july in the u.s. this year. but boy i will tell you, i got my show of fireworks that night.
the spaniards are also especially fond of the dynamite that you light and that only makes the loud BOOM after everyone thinks it was just a defective firework. those ones made me jump a few times as one time, someone lit it about 10 feet from where i was standing.
i felt bad for my friend aileen that night.
we were standing in the crazy square as a rather heavy man behind us began climbing a tree. we all kind of saw him out of the corner of our eyes but didnt think much of it. suddenly, SNAP. the entire branch of the tree that was supporting his body fell of the tree and landed on all of us. fortunately, we all got the soft branches. unfortunately for aileen, the hard wood of the tree hit her right behind her ear. i was worried at first as she held her head for a few minutes and didnt respond when we asked her if she was ok. after about 10 seconds, she looked up and said, "yeah im fine! but what the hell?! did i just get hit by a tree!?!?!?!" hahahahahahaha. only in spain.
the spaniards sure know how to celebrate. you could tell the difference between the spaniards and everyone else because they would run around jumping and yell in unison, "yo soy espanol, espanol, espanol! yo soy espanol, espanol, espanol!" (i am spanish, spanish, spanish! etc.) i sincerely wanted to join in with them, but i knew i couldnt as i am obviously a little white american girl! so we would just jump around and be like, "yeah! woot! alright spain!" hahaha.
i bought a flag that night too. its a pretty big one. i had it draped around my back along with my spanish jersey and my face paint.
pretty sure the spaniards liked seeing us all decked out as a few of them would grab my hand during the night and kiss it. they were all probably drunk and didnt know what they were doing. ;)
the excitement got SO HIGH at one point that i seriously turned to monica and told her that i would go kiss a random spaniard if she ran around with only the flag on. she said she would have to have more drinks to do that but she really liked the idea of me kissing a spaniard. it was a bad idea to propose the deal to her because throughout the rest of the night, she kept pointing out cute spaniards for me "to go kiss!" hahaha. but let me tell you, i was SO close to doing it a few times! but the last thing i want is to kiss a guy, then have his girlfriend jump out from behind him and pelt me in the face. with my luck, that would so happen. nah, i decided to keep it PG. ;)
we were standing around taking pictures and i double taked as i saw 2 guys running down the street across from us with their pants OFF!!!!! "look!" as i pointed to them. the girls all looked and soon after turned away. the girls were pretty disgusted by it but i thought it was kinda funny. hey! how many times does your country win a world cup?! if the u.s. ever wins, i just MIGHT do something equally insane. boy were those guys proud of their country!
it was about 2:30 a.m. and the crowds were only getting crazier and more drunk. so some of us decided to call it a night as you can only see bare butts, fireworks and people climbing trees/sculptures so many times before you have seen it all. ;)
monica, aileen, brett and eric decided to head down to the river to see what was happening there. man, if i would have known they were going to the river, i would have gone too because of what happened once they got there.
i guess they were on their way when all the sudden someone comes up behind aileen, puts his head between her legs and lifts her onto his shoulders!! the first words out of her mouth, "ah!!! where the heck are you taking me?!!?" hahahahaha. wish i could have seen that. so. funny. after a few minutes, he put her down and ran off and all she could do was look at monica and go, "what?!" hahaha!
they all finally got to the river and people were literally jumping. in. the. river. yes, the river thats water is brown all the way through. eeeeewwwwwwwwwww. they watched people jump for a while until eric and brett decided to jump in.
after some spaniards egged on aileen and monica, they decided to jump too. SHOOT! I WOULD HAVE JUMPED WITH THEM!!!! hahahaha. but man, what a night for aileen. she gets hit by a tree, picked up by a random spaniard and gets pressured to jump in a river. what a sport. ;)
as i walked home that night and the noises of the streets became a bit more faint, i took it all in and considered myself very lucky to join in on this nationwide celebration as a well deserved team unified their country and made them all proud to be spaniards.
job well done espana!
top night, top night for sure. ;)
i woke up sunday morning with a nervous feeling. why? oh thats right, its world cup game day. oh no, here we go again. but only one more game spain. one more. and you have it. the "spanish curse" will be broken.
supposedly there is this german octopus that has predicted every single major soccer game correctly for several years except for ONE. legend is that they put 2 different tanks of food in his area of habitat and you designate one tank to say, for example, spain, and then the other tank to say, for example, the netherlands. whichever tank the octopus chooses to eat the food from is the team that will win the game that day. the octopus chose the tank that was designated to spain. hm, interesting. everyone liked the idea of it, but no one wanted to jinx anything. i kinda laughed at it all ;)
monica and i slept in on sunday after the long travel day in sevilla on saturday and the late night out. we got up and mosied around for a bit and then watched the office together. funny story. neither of us had EVER watched the office or were interested in it until spring quarter of this last school year. we BOTH started watching it from SEASON 1 at the BEGINNING of SPRING quarter. how crazy is that?! we thought it was funny.
we then got ready for the pool and made the 20 minute walk down the quiet streets to the pool. i had not yet been to the pool but when i got there, whoa. what a sweet pool it was. it was an olympic sized pool with blue water that was crystal clear. perfect for another 100 degree + day. we layed our towels out and read for a little then got too hot to stay in the sun, so we made our way to the pool. we swam around and chatted and monica got out again while i stayed in. i was hanging out at the edge of the pool when this younger spaniard guy approached me and began talking to me. "ugh...." is what i thought because im the last girl that wants someone to interrupt me when im relaxing in a pool on a hot day. "just leave me alone....." is what i thought. turns out the guy was only semi creepy and we had a good conversation, all in spanish. he spoke probably about 20 words of english. so that forced me to step up my spanish game. about 10 minutes into the conversation he said, "you speak spanish very well." wait, WHAT?! YES!!!!!!!! no one has ever told me that. YAY! mission accomplished. get a compliment from a spaniard about my spanish speaking: check.
after a few hours, i decided to head back home to get ready for the big game. as i was walking back by myself, i realized how quiet the streets were. it was another day where the tension that was to come was just looming over the city. i thought to myself, "ha, if they win tonight, the streets will look NOTHING like this!" ;)
got home, put my Xavi camiseta (jersey) on and headed out the door for one of the bars we were meeting the group at.
we sat down and the bar quickly got crowded. pre game stuff was on and the announcers kept saying how they thought very highly of spains team, but that they weren't sure if they would be able to pull it off for the night. this is when my hands started to sweat and my legs wouldnt stop shaking. i. was. so. nervous.
my dad once told me that when the mariners were in the playoffs in 1995, he remembered sitting in our living room watching the game and being soooo nervous that his hands were dripping sweat because of the intensity of the game.
well, fortunately, mine were not DRIPPING sweat, but they were sure close. i must get the anxiety of watching sports from my dad because i swear, out of all of us girls, i was by far the one who was freaking out the most about this game. i was SO SO SO SO close to getting up out of that bar and watching the game from outside. i almost couldnt sit down because my feet kept shaking and my hands were getting sweaty. the only thing that kept me from walking out of that bar was the fact that the girls would have thought i was an idiot for being THAT nervous. "chill out katie, its just a game." yeah well tell my feet and hands that!
i honestly felt like i was like the mom of one of the players. so so so nervous for her son! i actually started thinking about the fact that i have always wanted boys and i started thinking that may be i shouldnt want to have boys because if i do then they will probably be athletic and play sports and i would have to go through this anxiety every week at their saturday morning soccer games. ay ay ay, i was a nervous wreck.
the game started and was on its way. ok. not only was i a nervous wreck for spain to win, but i was starting to get EXTREMELY upset at the netherlands' team. the fact that they thought spains players' feet were the ball about 37 times made me want to punch each one of them in the face. also, the fact that during one play, one of the players (oh whoopsies, "accidentally") confused alonso's CHEST FOR THE BALL, kicking him STRAIGHT ON IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CHEST KNOCKING THE WIND OUT OF HIM, just about made me scream and go grab that t.v. and throw it out the window. i was getting so frustrated with the netherlands' cheap shots, lack of class, terrible acting whenever they fell and just overall making this final game super physical. those frustrations made me want spain to win even more. for all of you out there who STILL wanted the netherlands to win after their pathetic unsportsmanlike behavior, i question your civility.
well, the 70 minute mark didnt prove to be spains time to take the lead in this game, so as i saw the 70 minute mark come and go, then the 80 minute mark, then the 90, i got even more heated. the last thing i wanted to see was a physically demanding sports match such as soccer end with penalty kicks. penalty kicks do nothing to prove the overall skill of team.
the game ends with the score: 0-0. oh gosh, overtime.
two 15 minute halves to come. then, if its still tied, penalty kicks. oh gosh bring on the randy olson sweaty hands.
the first half passes, still 0-0.
the second half comes, and its looking like it will go to penalty kicks. shoot.
oh wait.....
3 minutes left before penalty kicks, spain advances the ball down the field, baldie #6 gets the ball, shoots from a terribly difficult angle and, oh, wait, what?????
GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ESPANA IS UP 1-0!!!!!!!
i couldnt believe my eyes. did it actually happen? why yes, yes it did!
i jumped up probably about 3 feet into the air and freaked out, as did everyone else in that bar. i got so excited that the watch around my wrist FLEW OFF ME and landed somewhere i couldnt find. after celebrating for a bit, i started walking around the dark bar in search of the watch that has been one of my best friends while here. i literally couldnt find it! i made my way to the OTHER SIDE OF THE BAR and found it up against the wall, about 15 feet from where i was standing. oops. well hey, i was excited.
now all spain had to do was hold the lead for another 3 minutes. COME. ON. YOU. CAN. DO. IT.
game over, spain wins.
YES!!!!
wow, is this actually happening?
last December, i couldnt decide where i wanted to study abroad. i was torn between ireland, the safe option. the country that spoke english and had a ton of hot irish men to speak in english with. or, spain, the country that was definately the risky option. the country that didnt speak english but yes, did speak the language i was studying, but oh wait, they spoke it with this "extremely difficult accent that makes spanish in spain much different than spanish in the U.S."
what was it that told me to go to spain? to this day, i dont know. but one day, after being absolutely torn for quite some time, i just remember saying, "meh. im goin to spain."
nice choice, katie.
funny how i am here for this short window of time and spain wins their first world cup ever. sweet. timing like that doesnt always happen. i am very fortunate.
we took some pictures in the bar, the bartender brought around free shots for everyone, then we left to go join the party in the streets. and, well, basically anywhere you ended up, there was a party.
right when we got out onto the street, we once again, heard the faint noises of honking, screaming, and oh whats that? fireworks? yes, fireworks, too. ohhhhhhhhh gosh!
we made our way around the mobs of people, literally, mobs of people. everyone and their dog (seriously) were out on the streets. i saw plenty of 2-7 year old kids out celebrating too at 11 at night, because if you didnt know, in spain, it is absolutely customary for kids ages 2-whatever to be out well past midnight. soooo weird to see.
we walked around for about an hour and made our way to one of the more popular squares in town. streets were closed to traffic and the police were out everywhere. they closed off one of the main fountains because people have climbed up it during celebrations before. but their attempts to close it off had failed as i saw people running by the policemen to climb to the top of the fountain to stake the spanish flag. about 5 had made it up successfully and eventually were pulled down by the cops and hauled away to who knows where.
i was sad i didnt get to experience the fireworks on the 4th of july in the u.s. this year. but boy i will tell you, i got my show of fireworks that night.
the spaniards are also especially fond of the dynamite that you light and that only makes the loud BOOM after everyone thinks it was just a defective firework. those ones made me jump a few times as one time, someone lit it about 10 feet from where i was standing.
i felt bad for my friend aileen that night.
we were standing in the crazy square as a rather heavy man behind us began climbing a tree. we all kind of saw him out of the corner of our eyes but didnt think much of it. suddenly, SNAP. the entire branch of the tree that was supporting his body fell of the tree and landed on all of us. fortunately, we all got the soft branches. unfortunately for aileen, the hard wood of the tree hit her right behind her ear. i was worried at first as she held her head for a few minutes and didnt respond when we asked her if she was ok. after about 10 seconds, she looked up and said, "yeah im fine! but what the hell?! did i just get hit by a tree!?!?!?!" hahahahahahaha. only in spain.
the spaniards sure know how to celebrate. you could tell the difference between the spaniards and everyone else because they would run around jumping and yell in unison, "yo soy espanol, espanol, espanol! yo soy espanol, espanol, espanol!" (i am spanish, spanish, spanish! etc.) i sincerely wanted to join in with them, but i knew i couldnt as i am obviously a little white american girl! so we would just jump around and be like, "yeah! woot! alright spain!" hahaha.
i bought a flag that night too. its a pretty big one. i had it draped around my back along with my spanish jersey and my face paint.
pretty sure the spaniards liked seeing us all decked out as a few of them would grab my hand during the night and kiss it. they were all probably drunk and didnt know what they were doing. ;)
the excitement got SO HIGH at one point that i seriously turned to monica and told her that i would go kiss a random spaniard if she ran around with only the flag on. she said she would have to have more drinks to do that but she really liked the idea of me kissing a spaniard. it was a bad idea to propose the deal to her because throughout the rest of the night, she kept pointing out cute spaniards for me "to go kiss!" hahaha. but let me tell you, i was SO close to doing it a few times! but the last thing i want is to kiss a guy, then have his girlfriend jump out from behind him and pelt me in the face. with my luck, that would so happen. nah, i decided to keep it PG. ;)
we were standing around taking pictures and i double taked as i saw 2 guys running down the street across from us with their pants OFF!!!!! "look!" as i pointed to them. the girls all looked and soon after turned away. the girls were pretty disgusted by it but i thought it was kinda funny. hey! how many times does your country win a world cup?! if the u.s. ever wins, i just MIGHT do something equally insane. boy were those guys proud of their country!
it was about 2:30 a.m. and the crowds were only getting crazier and more drunk. so some of us decided to call it a night as you can only see bare butts, fireworks and people climbing trees/sculptures so many times before you have seen it all. ;)
monica, aileen, brett and eric decided to head down to the river to see what was happening there. man, if i would have known they were going to the river, i would have gone too because of what happened once they got there.
i guess they were on their way when all the sudden someone comes up behind aileen, puts his head between her legs and lifts her onto his shoulders!! the first words out of her mouth, "ah!!! where the heck are you taking me?!!?" hahahahaha. wish i could have seen that. so. funny. after a few minutes, he put her down and ran off and all she could do was look at monica and go, "what?!" hahaha!
they all finally got to the river and people were literally jumping. in. the. river. yes, the river thats water is brown all the way through. eeeeewwwwwwwwwww. they watched people jump for a while until eric and brett decided to jump in.
after some spaniards egged on aileen and monica, they decided to jump too. SHOOT! I WOULD HAVE JUMPED WITH THEM!!!! hahahaha. but man, what a night for aileen. she gets hit by a tree, picked up by a random spaniard and gets pressured to jump in a river. what a sport. ;)
as i walked home that night and the noises of the streets became a bit more faint, i took it all in and considered myself very lucky to join in on this nationwide celebration as a well deserved team unified their country and made them all proud to be spaniards.
job well done espana!
top night, top night for sure. ;)
Saturday, July 10, 2010
gypsies, pick pocketers and sevilla
i'm a quarter of the way done with my classes. wait, what?! man time flies when you're having fun! spain doesn't cease to impress me with its beauty and charm...
the other day, aileen and i ran out of our class that got out at 9:30 p.m. and caught a cab up to the Albaycin which is a beautiful square that has the typical sweet european restaurants and shops. but its specialty is the view it offers of the spectacular alhambra. our group was already up there having a picnic and we had to meet up with them.
so we jumped in a cab and told him where to take us and as he drove off the main road and up these narrow, windy streets, i found myself closing my eyes and holding on to the door handle in the car. i was just waiting for us to turn a corner and BOOM, hit a car head on. because as i have mentioned, there are no signs indicating one or two way. so everyone just kinda does whatever the heck they want here. yikesabee.
we got to the top alive and ran to meet with the group who was taking pictures just as the sun was setting off in the distance. i got a few pictures of the alhambra at sunset right before it got too dark. the view was beautiful beyond words and the alhambra sat on the hill and in the background was the snow capped mountains of the sierra nevadas. ahhhhhh.
we walked back down the hill as a group and stopped in a little tea place. we all sat down and i ended up sitting by our program director because she is super cool. i love talking with her. i didnt know what to order because im not really a tea or coffee drinker, so i asked her what i should get. she said she always gets this lemonade with some type of herb in it. so ok i said why not ill get the same thing. it came and boy was it yummy. i loved it.
throughout the night, she was fanning herself with her little granada fan and i just got a kick out of the way she would open it. every time, its like she had this special hand whip and PUFF, the fan would open. it was pretty impressive. i asked to get a picture with her and right before the picture, she went, "oh, wait." and PUFF, whipped open her fan to have it in the picture. i feel like the picture turned out with me kind of laughing. these women and their fans here. dont get in their way when they have a fan, or else you can get seriously injured.
friday. yes. end of the week. it was a stressful week of classes and i was ready for the weekend. i woke up early in the morning and decided to go out and try and finish my souvenir shopping for friends and family.
last quarter in my spanish class, a girl did a presentation of gypsies and their presence in spain. she said that these women who look nothing like gypsies walk around with this little herb looking branch and ask if you if you want it. of course it smells really good and why wouldnt you want it? well, if you take it, they immediately grab your arm, try and "read your palm" and they MAKE YOU pay $10 for it!!! they wont let go of your arm unless you pay. yikes. katie- dont take the herb from the gypsy: check.
as i was walking through the little shopping center by myself, i saw a women who looked like a completely normal, friendly women standing about 10 feet away with a small branch in her hand. i thought to myself, "oh my gosh. ok dont let her make you take it, katie." and of course, once i reach her, she walks up to me and tries to put the branch in my hand and says, "take it, take it!" with this big "friendly" smile on her face. i kindly say no thanks and keep walking. phew.
sure enough, another girl walking behind me who unfortunately did not know of this commonality, did decide to take the branch, probably thinking there was no harm to it. as i saw her take it, surprise surprise, the gypsy grabbed her wrist tightly and in spanish said that she had to pay her $10 to hear her fortune and that she wouldnt let go until she paid her.
mental note: dont take things from strangers, even if its a branch ;)
it was a successful day of shopping as i found things for all my girls back home, more things for my sisters (whom i am spoiling ;) and my dad. i am having SO MUCH trouble finding something for steven and anders. steven asked me to get him a mini guitar. WHAT?! how am i supposed to fit that in my bag on my way home!? just kiddin steve ;) but seriously!
so i am still looking for the boys. let me know if you have any ideas :)
classes went well and i came home and had my amazing dinner with my favorite dessert that i seem to be getting every day or every other day here. its called "nattilla." its basically glory in your mouth. i cant even explain it. its almost like a delicious, soft custard with cinnamon and sugar on top. thats a terrible explanation but i know i will miss it once i leave and probably have withdrawals ;)
that night i hung out with the greek girls and quienten and we watched wedding crashers with spanish subtitles. hahahaha! it was a low key night as we had to get up early in the morning for sevilla!
got up at 6:15 to my alarm. ugh. got about 4 hours of sleep as my body doesnt seem to get over the heat and drift to sleep until about 2 or 2:30 over here. im used to it though :/
monica and i got ready, had our 2 pieces of toast (still not adjusting to that haha) and met the group to get on the bus for sevilla.
it was about a 3 hour bus drive. we drove through the countryside of beautiful spain. it was surprisingly green and hilly which i did not expect. we passed little cities here and there. it was quite the scenic drive. i just kept thinking, "yeah katie....your driving through the heart of spain right now. thats pretty dang cool." ;)
we finally got to sevilla and before we got off the bus, our boisterous/informative/high strung tour guide told all of us to MAKE SURE to keep our purses/bags RIGHT BY OUR SIDE as sevilla is a heavily populated tourist city and pick pocketing is very popular there.
so all of us gals zipped our bags and held them close before we got off the bus.
we all got off and right away entered this ENORMOUS square called "la plaza de espana." it was gigantic. literally. our tour guide said that several films have been filmed there including numerous fighting seasons in the star wars series. very cool.
as we were walking off to go to our next sight, i overheard one of the girls talking to her friend in a concerned voice. she was telling her that she didnt know where her wallet and camera went. she said that she swore she had them right before she got off the bus and that she noticed it was gone about 10 minutes after she got off the bus. they were both gone and she had no clue where they could have been. yikes. these pick pocketers mean business. dont mess with them with a vulnerable/open bag or else they will for sure mess with you :/
our tour guide also told us that one time, one of the boys in her group had his wallet in his ZIPPED back pocket and that someone had taken some kind of device and had CUT his back pocket right off, wallet included, without him even knowing. wow. now thats skill.
we walked through the streets, by horses hauling carriages and turned a corner and BAM. another HUGE church stood right in front of us. gosh these places pop out of no where.
there we stood in front of "el catedral." the 4th largest christian building in the world. wow. it was big, indeed.
we walked inside and memories from my other europe trips came flooding back. these european churches just blow me away. they are beyond spectacular and beyond huge. i just cant believe how high the ceilings are in these places. i swear you could bungee jump from the ceilings!! (hm, thats a good idea....)
as we walked around, i was in awe as i always am when im touring european buildings of any kind. we walked around a corner and saw all these people taking pictures of this one area. hmmmm, whats the big deal? turns out it was the tomb of a famous man by the name of christopher colombus. oh....really now? *get out camera and try and take really good pictures*
wow. there i stood in front of a tomb of a man who is and will always be *known* as the man who discovered the country we all call home. thats some important guy laying right there.
we all then had the choice to climb the 33 flights to the top of the church where there was an outdoor look-out of sevilla. it was the highest point in sevilla. um....yeah im going to the top. no question. so i carried eva's (one of the greek girls) bags for her as i assured her that i have climbed plenty of stairs in my day and that i could probably carry her on my back if she needed. i told her that i have these big legs for a reason ;)
we got to the top after an indoor, semi suffocating climb to the top and bam. there was sevilla. old buildings of all different colors stood 360 degrees around us. you could see for miles. literally. we walked around and got pictures from all directions. we looked down and saw people enjoying their pools. we all got very jealous as the 45 degree celsius heat (113 degrees fahrenheit) was sure getting to us. especially after the mini hike to the top of the church.
eva was really heating up so she whipped out her fan with that impressive whip like motion that i just cant seem to get down ;) and as she was whipping it out of her bag, she flung it straight across the deck and it landed a few feet away. sweet alaina went to pick it up for her and whispered to me, "thats the 4th time shes done that today..." as she jokingly rolled her eyes. hahahaha. apparently im not the only one who has difficulties with this fan business ;)
we got back down to the bottom of the church and went to tour another palace as our last sight of the day. the palace resembled the alhambra in many ways, and come to find, the architect of the palace was friends with the architect of the alhambra. ha, small world! no wonder they looked similar!
we walked back to the first starbucks that i have seen so far on this trip to get drinks for the ride home. i informed everyone that the first starbucks ever resides in seattle. they were all very impressed with that and i felt a little pride for good ol' seattle at that moment :)
wooohooo, the first starbucks coffee shop ever is in seattle which opened when MY dad was 16. and i found pride in THAT when i was just standing in the 4th largest christian building in the world that housed the body of a famous man that lived several centuries ago? psh, think again katie ;)
we got on the bus and headed back home. yes, home, to granada :)
monica and i find it funny that we call SPAIN our home now....
we both kind of like the sound of it.... ;)
the other day, aileen and i ran out of our class that got out at 9:30 p.m. and caught a cab up to the Albaycin which is a beautiful square that has the typical sweet european restaurants and shops. but its specialty is the view it offers of the spectacular alhambra. our group was already up there having a picnic and we had to meet up with them.
so we jumped in a cab and told him where to take us and as he drove off the main road and up these narrow, windy streets, i found myself closing my eyes and holding on to the door handle in the car. i was just waiting for us to turn a corner and BOOM, hit a car head on. because as i have mentioned, there are no signs indicating one or two way. so everyone just kinda does whatever the heck they want here. yikesabee.
we got to the top alive and ran to meet with the group who was taking pictures just as the sun was setting off in the distance. i got a few pictures of the alhambra at sunset right before it got too dark. the view was beautiful beyond words and the alhambra sat on the hill and in the background was the snow capped mountains of the sierra nevadas. ahhhhhh.
we walked back down the hill as a group and stopped in a little tea place. we all sat down and i ended up sitting by our program director because she is super cool. i love talking with her. i didnt know what to order because im not really a tea or coffee drinker, so i asked her what i should get. she said she always gets this lemonade with some type of herb in it. so ok i said why not ill get the same thing. it came and boy was it yummy. i loved it.
throughout the night, she was fanning herself with her little granada fan and i just got a kick out of the way she would open it. every time, its like she had this special hand whip and PUFF, the fan would open. it was pretty impressive. i asked to get a picture with her and right before the picture, she went, "oh, wait." and PUFF, whipped open her fan to have it in the picture. i feel like the picture turned out with me kind of laughing. these women and their fans here. dont get in their way when they have a fan, or else you can get seriously injured.
friday. yes. end of the week. it was a stressful week of classes and i was ready for the weekend. i woke up early in the morning and decided to go out and try and finish my souvenir shopping for friends and family.
last quarter in my spanish class, a girl did a presentation of gypsies and their presence in spain. she said that these women who look nothing like gypsies walk around with this little herb looking branch and ask if you if you want it. of course it smells really good and why wouldnt you want it? well, if you take it, they immediately grab your arm, try and "read your palm" and they MAKE YOU pay $10 for it!!! they wont let go of your arm unless you pay. yikes. katie- dont take the herb from the gypsy: check.
as i was walking through the little shopping center by myself, i saw a women who looked like a completely normal, friendly women standing about 10 feet away with a small branch in her hand. i thought to myself, "oh my gosh. ok dont let her make you take it, katie." and of course, once i reach her, she walks up to me and tries to put the branch in my hand and says, "take it, take it!" with this big "friendly" smile on her face. i kindly say no thanks and keep walking. phew.
sure enough, another girl walking behind me who unfortunately did not know of this commonality, did decide to take the branch, probably thinking there was no harm to it. as i saw her take it, surprise surprise, the gypsy grabbed her wrist tightly and in spanish said that she had to pay her $10 to hear her fortune and that she wouldnt let go until she paid her.
mental note: dont take things from strangers, even if its a branch ;)
it was a successful day of shopping as i found things for all my girls back home, more things for my sisters (whom i am spoiling ;) and my dad. i am having SO MUCH trouble finding something for steven and anders. steven asked me to get him a mini guitar. WHAT?! how am i supposed to fit that in my bag on my way home!? just kiddin steve ;) but seriously!
so i am still looking for the boys. let me know if you have any ideas :)
classes went well and i came home and had my amazing dinner with my favorite dessert that i seem to be getting every day or every other day here. its called "nattilla." its basically glory in your mouth. i cant even explain it. its almost like a delicious, soft custard with cinnamon and sugar on top. thats a terrible explanation but i know i will miss it once i leave and probably have withdrawals ;)
that night i hung out with the greek girls and quienten and we watched wedding crashers with spanish subtitles. hahahaha! it was a low key night as we had to get up early in the morning for sevilla!
got up at 6:15 to my alarm. ugh. got about 4 hours of sleep as my body doesnt seem to get over the heat and drift to sleep until about 2 or 2:30 over here. im used to it though :/
monica and i got ready, had our 2 pieces of toast (still not adjusting to that haha) and met the group to get on the bus for sevilla.
it was about a 3 hour bus drive. we drove through the countryside of beautiful spain. it was surprisingly green and hilly which i did not expect. we passed little cities here and there. it was quite the scenic drive. i just kept thinking, "yeah katie....your driving through the heart of spain right now. thats pretty dang cool." ;)
we finally got to sevilla and before we got off the bus, our boisterous/informative/high strung tour guide told all of us to MAKE SURE to keep our purses/bags RIGHT BY OUR SIDE as sevilla is a heavily populated tourist city and pick pocketing is very popular there.
so all of us gals zipped our bags and held them close before we got off the bus.
we all got off and right away entered this ENORMOUS square called "la plaza de espana." it was gigantic. literally. our tour guide said that several films have been filmed there including numerous fighting seasons in the star wars series. very cool.
as we were walking off to go to our next sight, i overheard one of the girls talking to her friend in a concerned voice. she was telling her that she didnt know where her wallet and camera went. she said that she swore she had them right before she got off the bus and that she noticed it was gone about 10 minutes after she got off the bus. they were both gone and she had no clue where they could have been. yikes. these pick pocketers mean business. dont mess with them with a vulnerable/open bag or else they will for sure mess with you :/
our tour guide also told us that one time, one of the boys in her group had his wallet in his ZIPPED back pocket and that someone had taken some kind of device and had CUT his back pocket right off, wallet included, without him even knowing. wow. now thats skill.
we walked through the streets, by horses hauling carriages and turned a corner and BAM. another HUGE church stood right in front of us. gosh these places pop out of no where.
there we stood in front of "el catedral." the 4th largest christian building in the world. wow. it was big, indeed.
we walked inside and memories from my other europe trips came flooding back. these european churches just blow me away. they are beyond spectacular and beyond huge. i just cant believe how high the ceilings are in these places. i swear you could bungee jump from the ceilings!! (hm, thats a good idea....)
as we walked around, i was in awe as i always am when im touring european buildings of any kind. we walked around a corner and saw all these people taking pictures of this one area. hmmmm, whats the big deal? turns out it was the tomb of a famous man by the name of christopher colombus. oh....really now? *get out camera and try and take really good pictures*
wow. there i stood in front of a tomb of a man who is and will always be *known* as the man who discovered the country we all call home. thats some important guy laying right there.
we all then had the choice to climb the 33 flights to the top of the church where there was an outdoor look-out of sevilla. it was the highest point in sevilla. um....yeah im going to the top. no question. so i carried eva's (one of the greek girls) bags for her as i assured her that i have climbed plenty of stairs in my day and that i could probably carry her on my back if she needed. i told her that i have these big legs for a reason ;)
we got to the top after an indoor, semi suffocating climb to the top and bam. there was sevilla. old buildings of all different colors stood 360 degrees around us. you could see for miles. literally. we walked around and got pictures from all directions. we looked down and saw people enjoying their pools. we all got very jealous as the 45 degree celsius heat (113 degrees fahrenheit) was sure getting to us. especially after the mini hike to the top of the church.
eva was really heating up so she whipped out her fan with that impressive whip like motion that i just cant seem to get down ;) and as she was whipping it out of her bag, she flung it straight across the deck and it landed a few feet away. sweet alaina went to pick it up for her and whispered to me, "thats the 4th time shes done that today..." as she jokingly rolled her eyes. hahahaha. apparently im not the only one who has difficulties with this fan business ;)
we got back down to the bottom of the church and went to tour another palace as our last sight of the day. the palace resembled the alhambra in many ways, and come to find, the architect of the palace was friends with the architect of the alhambra. ha, small world! no wonder they looked similar!
we walked back to the first starbucks that i have seen so far on this trip to get drinks for the ride home. i informed everyone that the first starbucks ever resides in seattle. they were all very impressed with that and i felt a little pride for good ol' seattle at that moment :)
wooohooo, the first starbucks coffee shop ever is in seattle which opened when MY dad was 16. and i found pride in THAT when i was just standing in the 4th largest christian building in the world that housed the body of a famous man that lived several centuries ago? psh, think again katie ;)
we got on the bus and headed back home. yes, home, to granada :)
monica and i find it funny that we call SPAIN our home now....
we both kind of like the sound of it.... ;)
Thursday, July 8, 2010
WORLD. CUP. BOUND.
right when i woke up wednesday morning i felt it. there was a strange feeling in the air. it was a somber, yet anxious feeling. spain was preparing for their semi final game against the renowned german team. im going to be honest with you.... i was not betting my money on a victory for spain. but i was trying to be optimistic.
as i made my way out onto the streets wednesday morning, i saw that everyone was decked out in RED. red red red. spanish flags EVERYWHERE.
what i found interesting a few days ago is when one of our directors told us that the spanish flag is NEVER hung or seen as much as it has been this past month. for the spanish people, you are actually considered ¨different¨ if you wear or hang the spanish flag. odd, huh? in the u.s., i see american flags in all sorts of places. and by no means are any of us against wearing our colors: red, white and blue. interesting, i think to myself. this made me realize how much more soccer really means to this country. it is literally all they have. no other sport means anything to them. it is all about SOCCER here. i want spain to win the world cup this year because: 1. they never have 2. i would be here to experience it :) and 3. it could very well unify this country more and allow them to share the pride of their country with one another. though it may take something as little as a single soccer game- perhaps this is what spain needs in order to appreciate their identity as spaniards. we shall see i guess :)
i got to school early yesterday because my late night class was rescheduled to 8 a.m. rather than 8 p.m. why, do you ask? well, the game was at 8:30 p.m. last night and according to my art history prof, ¨in life...there are a few things that are more important than education. and one of them is soccer. your homework is to watch the game. viva espana!!!!¨ hahaha. ok, ill go with that ;)
i then stuck around the school during my long break to do some homework and enjoy my new favorite form of electricity: air conditioning. YES. for all of you over there in seattle enjoying that 70 and 80 degree weather- embrace the coolness of it. and please, for my sake, dont you dare say, ¨oh my gosh....its SOOOOO hot here!!!!¨ you. have. no. idea. what. hot. is.
i had my geography class yesterday and i felt like i was keeping up better with the professor and his 1,000 words per minute pace ;) i really do love learning about climate, topography and the affects altitude has on the regions of spain. thats where my ¨nerdiness¨ comes out ;)
i used my break to do more homework because i knew i had a big night ahead of me!!
my language class was next. walked into class and saw that our teacher was wearing an espana shirt and had the spanish flag painted on her forearms. YES! hahaha. she is too cool.
this class always starts at 6 and goes until 8. the game was at 8:30. eeeeeeeeeg were cutting it close!! but she knew what we were thinking and she was thinking the same thing too :)
we have class for an hour then about a 10 minute break then we go for the next 50 minutes. we came back from our break and all sat down ready to pound out the last 50 minutes. but rather than starting class right away, she whips out her camera and her face paint and says, ¨alguien quires??¨ (anyone want some!?) while holding up the face paint. WHY YES I WANT SOME FACE PAINT!!!!! i raised my hand and said, ¨si, lo quiero! lo queiro!!!¨ the other girls did too so she started walking around and painting our faces!!! ¨ok. i love school in spain¨ is what i was thinking. i mean how cool is this!? i took out my camera and started taking pictures of it all, yes, in the middle of class. hehe. once she painted our faces, she picked up her camera and got a picture of all of us. soooo funny. i wish spain was playing a soccer game every day im in school here ;) the excitement of game days just hovers in the air.
we went for another 30 minutes or so and she sensed our antsyness. so she said ¨ok, es todo para hoy. viva espana!!¨ (ok thats good for today. lets go spain!!) then we all joined in with her, grabbed our stuff and ran out of that building so fast im pretty sure the other students thought there was a fire or something. ;)
aileen and i ran to meet up with our friends at one of the fun bars in town. we got there just in time to get the last table. we all ordered drinks and sat down. the game was to start in about 15 minutes. i began to get this feeling that i havent gotten in about 5 years. when i did summer swim league from ages 7-16, i would always get soooooo nervous before EVERY RACE. no other sport i was a part of game me the rush that swimming gave me. before every race, my nerves would be out of control, to the point where i had no appetite and i felt like my stomach was going to come up and right out my mouth. that feeling resignated in me last night. it was almost a foreign feeling as i havent swam competitively in years. sitting there waiting for that game to start made me lose all appetite for food. wow. imagine how those players felt. thats pressure right there. but whats funny to me is that im an american. why am i soooooo nervous for this game?? i guess there is no other way to explain it but that if you were to be in spain with me now, you would probably feel the same way. the atmosphere here forces every nerve in your body to want nothing more but to see spain win the whole thing.
the game started and an uproar went through the bar. here. we. go.
all eyes were on the t.v.´s and for the first 70 + minutes of that game, the bar was full of tension. pure tension. spain was dominating the entire time. sprinting at full force to each ball, out running and out enduring each german on the field. they made the german team look lazy. just watching them, you could tell that every cell in each one of those spaniards wanted to win so bad.
i started getting more and more nervous as there were missed shots on goal from spain and germany. my heart just about jumped out of my chest the few times germany came close to scoring. honestly, if i were to be watching this game in about 60 years from now, i would probably have had a heart attack. no joke.
it seems that there is something about the 70 minute mark that pumps up the spain team. the 70 minute mark rolls around and the score is still 0-0. minute 73 comes around.... corner kick: spain. well, whats new? spain had several corner kick attempts that ended in failure. what would be different about this one? psh, we had no idea.
xavi (the player whose jersey i wear ;) kicked a beautiful ball right into the middle of the 18 box where players surrounded the area. puyol (who has quite the head of hair, if i must say so myself) leaped into the air, almost out of his own body, and with all the strength he had in him, nailed the ball into the right corner of the goal. GOAL ESPANA!!!!!!!!!!!!!
readers, did you hear spain screaming from where you are? no? that surprises me because it was SO LOUD. people screaming, hollering, crying, yelling, everything and anything you can think of to make noise. such an exciting moment. now spain only had to hold on for about 20 more minutes and they would have it.
the rest of the game was still nerve wracking as we knew we had to keep the lead. luckily, we did. spain advances to THE. WORLD. CUP. FINALS. FOR. THE. FIRST. TIME. EVER.
as predicted, we ran outside and heard the uproar just like when spain beat paraguay last saturday. craziness again. except this time, crazier. more people. more excitement. a world cup victory was actually closer in sight. and i am here to see it unfold. i still cant believe it.
we ran around the streets and joined in the partying, singing and dancing. i definately did some more high fiving with the crazy spaniards. whenever i would, they would give me this funny smile and later i realized that i rarely see spaniards high fiving each other over here so they must have known right away that i was a crazy american girl...in a spanish jersey....face painted with the spanish flag.... running around high fiving people because of a soccer game. ¨loco, loco, loco¨ they must have thought about me ;)
i got some gelato in celebration and i sware, probably about 3 times i almost got it spilled all over me because of the mobs of people. and i almost lost the group about 5 different times as it took a lot of concentration to follow each other in the enormous crowds there were. so so so fun.
after celebrating and going out for the wonderful tappas- monica, aileen and i were on our way home when this younger spaniard guy wearing the flag asked us for directions (he was from northern spain...so he claimed...). we helped him to where he needed to go and he came up to each one of us, kissed us on our cheeks and said, ¨my name is antonio, what is yours? thank you for your help. and ladies, in spain, we kiss!¨ we all just laughed and he proceeded to say, ¨dont go to bed tonight! i want to see you all later!¨ hahaha.
my dad told me that when the seattle sonics won the nba finals in 1979, that people were so excited that they threw couches and t.v.´s off their balconies.
well, when we turned the corner to our street, lo and behold, there sat 2 different couches in the middle of the road that definately were not there earlier that day and definately did not belong there. hahaha.
the celebration went on to the wee hours of the night as i heard several of my friends returning to the dorms around 4 or 5 a.m. ay ay ay.
today everyone is just super happy and content. still on a high from last nights game, yet still far enough away from sunday to be nervous about the next game.
went to lunch today and antonio, our cook, said, ¨que comida quires por este noche rubia y guapa??¨ (what food do you want for tonight pretty blonde??)
ok. 1. im not blonde. i dont ever plan on being blonde. but i guess here, my hair is light enough to be considered blonde because everyone here has dark hair. hmmmmmm ok then. and 2. dear antonio, thank you for calling me pretty, just dont do it again or you will freak me out because you are an old man ;)
goodness there must be something about the name antonio ;)
headed outside to walk to class for today and the temperature board read 42 degrees celsius again. 108 degrees fahrenheit. ohhhhhhh gooooodness.
what shocked me even more was when one of my profs said that we should enjoy the weather now before it gets too hot. because in late july, it gets to 50 degrees celcius. yup, 122 degrees fahrenheit.
uh oh.
as i made my way out onto the streets wednesday morning, i saw that everyone was decked out in RED. red red red. spanish flags EVERYWHERE.
what i found interesting a few days ago is when one of our directors told us that the spanish flag is NEVER hung or seen as much as it has been this past month. for the spanish people, you are actually considered ¨different¨ if you wear or hang the spanish flag. odd, huh? in the u.s., i see american flags in all sorts of places. and by no means are any of us against wearing our colors: red, white and blue. interesting, i think to myself. this made me realize how much more soccer really means to this country. it is literally all they have. no other sport means anything to them. it is all about SOCCER here. i want spain to win the world cup this year because: 1. they never have 2. i would be here to experience it :) and 3. it could very well unify this country more and allow them to share the pride of their country with one another. though it may take something as little as a single soccer game- perhaps this is what spain needs in order to appreciate their identity as spaniards. we shall see i guess :)
i got to school early yesterday because my late night class was rescheduled to 8 a.m. rather than 8 p.m. why, do you ask? well, the game was at 8:30 p.m. last night and according to my art history prof, ¨in life...there are a few things that are more important than education. and one of them is soccer. your homework is to watch the game. viva espana!!!!¨ hahaha. ok, ill go with that ;)
i then stuck around the school during my long break to do some homework and enjoy my new favorite form of electricity: air conditioning. YES. for all of you over there in seattle enjoying that 70 and 80 degree weather- embrace the coolness of it. and please, for my sake, dont you dare say, ¨oh my gosh....its SOOOOO hot here!!!!¨ you. have. no. idea. what. hot. is.
i had my geography class yesterday and i felt like i was keeping up better with the professor and his 1,000 words per minute pace ;) i really do love learning about climate, topography and the affects altitude has on the regions of spain. thats where my ¨nerdiness¨ comes out ;)
i used my break to do more homework because i knew i had a big night ahead of me!!
my language class was next. walked into class and saw that our teacher was wearing an espana shirt and had the spanish flag painted on her forearms. YES! hahaha. she is too cool.
this class always starts at 6 and goes until 8. the game was at 8:30. eeeeeeeeeg were cutting it close!! but she knew what we were thinking and she was thinking the same thing too :)
we have class for an hour then about a 10 minute break then we go for the next 50 minutes. we came back from our break and all sat down ready to pound out the last 50 minutes. but rather than starting class right away, she whips out her camera and her face paint and says, ¨alguien quires??¨ (anyone want some!?) while holding up the face paint. WHY YES I WANT SOME FACE PAINT!!!!! i raised my hand and said, ¨si, lo quiero! lo queiro!!!¨ the other girls did too so she started walking around and painting our faces!!! ¨ok. i love school in spain¨ is what i was thinking. i mean how cool is this!? i took out my camera and started taking pictures of it all, yes, in the middle of class. hehe. once she painted our faces, she picked up her camera and got a picture of all of us. soooo funny. i wish spain was playing a soccer game every day im in school here ;) the excitement of game days just hovers in the air.
we went for another 30 minutes or so and she sensed our antsyness. so she said ¨ok, es todo para hoy. viva espana!!¨ (ok thats good for today. lets go spain!!) then we all joined in with her, grabbed our stuff and ran out of that building so fast im pretty sure the other students thought there was a fire or something. ;)
aileen and i ran to meet up with our friends at one of the fun bars in town. we got there just in time to get the last table. we all ordered drinks and sat down. the game was to start in about 15 minutes. i began to get this feeling that i havent gotten in about 5 years. when i did summer swim league from ages 7-16, i would always get soooooo nervous before EVERY RACE. no other sport i was a part of game me the rush that swimming gave me. before every race, my nerves would be out of control, to the point where i had no appetite and i felt like my stomach was going to come up and right out my mouth. that feeling resignated in me last night. it was almost a foreign feeling as i havent swam competitively in years. sitting there waiting for that game to start made me lose all appetite for food. wow. imagine how those players felt. thats pressure right there. but whats funny to me is that im an american. why am i soooooo nervous for this game?? i guess there is no other way to explain it but that if you were to be in spain with me now, you would probably feel the same way. the atmosphere here forces every nerve in your body to want nothing more but to see spain win the whole thing.
the game started and an uproar went through the bar. here. we. go.
all eyes were on the t.v.´s and for the first 70 + minutes of that game, the bar was full of tension. pure tension. spain was dominating the entire time. sprinting at full force to each ball, out running and out enduring each german on the field. they made the german team look lazy. just watching them, you could tell that every cell in each one of those spaniards wanted to win so bad.
i started getting more and more nervous as there were missed shots on goal from spain and germany. my heart just about jumped out of my chest the few times germany came close to scoring. honestly, if i were to be watching this game in about 60 years from now, i would probably have had a heart attack. no joke.
it seems that there is something about the 70 minute mark that pumps up the spain team. the 70 minute mark rolls around and the score is still 0-0. minute 73 comes around.... corner kick: spain. well, whats new? spain had several corner kick attempts that ended in failure. what would be different about this one? psh, we had no idea.
xavi (the player whose jersey i wear ;) kicked a beautiful ball right into the middle of the 18 box where players surrounded the area. puyol (who has quite the head of hair, if i must say so myself) leaped into the air, almost out of his own body, and with all the strength he had in him, nailed the ball into the right corner of the goal. GOAL ESPANA!!!!!!!!!!!!!
readers, did you hear spain screaming from where you are? no? that surprises me because it was SO LOUD. people screaming, hollering, crying, yelling, everything and anything you can think of to make noise. such an exciting moment. now spain only had to hold on for about 20 more minutes and they would have it.
the rest of the game was still nerve wracking as we knew we had to keep the lead. luckily, we did. spain advances to THE. WORLD. CUP. FINALS. FOR. THE. FIRST. TIME. EVER.
as predicted, we ran outside and heard the uproar just like when spain beat paraguay last saturday. craziness again. except this time, crazier. more people. more excitement. a world cup victory was actually closer in sight. and i am here to see it unfold. i still cant believe it.
we ran around the streets and joined in the partying, singing and dancing. i definately did some more high fiving with the crazy spaniards. whenever i would, they would give me this funny smile and later i realized that i rarely see spaniards high fiving each other over here so they must have known right away that i was a crazy american girl...in a spanish jersey....face painted with the spanish flag.... running around high fiving people because of a soccer game. ¨loco, loco, loco¨ they must have thought about me ;)
i got some gelato in celebration and i sware, probably about 3 times i almost got it spilled all over me because of the mobs of people. and i almost lost the group about 5 different times as it took a lot of concentration to follow each other in the enormous crowds there were. so so so fun.
after celebrating and going out for the wonderful tappas- monica, aileen and i were on our way home when this younger spaniard guy wearing the flag asked us for directions (he was from northern spain...so he claimed...). we helped him to where he needed to go and he came up to each one of us, kissed us on our cheeks and said, ¨my name is antonio, what is yours? thank you for your help. and ladies, in spain, we kiss!¨ we all just laughed and he proceeded to say, ¨dont go to bed tonight! i want to see you all later!¨ hahaha.
my dad told me that when the seattle sonics won the nba finals in 1979, that people were so excited that they threw couches and t.v.´s off their balconies.
well, when we turned the corner to our street, lo and behold, there sat 2 different couches in the middle of the road that definately were not there earlier that day and definately did not belong there. hahaha.
the celebration went on to the wee hours of the night as i heard several of my friends returning to the dorms around 4 or 5 a.m. ay ay ay.
today everyone is just super happy and content. still on a high from last nights game, yet still far enough away from sunday to be nervous about the next game.
went to lunch today and antonio, our cook, said, ¨que comida quires por este noche rubia y guapa??¨ (what food do you want for tonight pretty blonde??)
ok. 1. im not blonde. i dont ever plan on being blonde. but i guess here, my hair is light enough to be considered blonde because everyone here has dark hair. hmmmmmm ok then. and 2. dear antonio, thank you for calling me pretty, just dont do it again or you will freak me out because you are an old man ;)
goodness there must be something about the name antonio ;)
headed outside to walk to class for today and the temperature board read 42 degrees celsius again. 108 degrees fahrenheit. ohhhhhhh gooooodness.
what shocked me even more was when one of my profs said that we should enjoy the weather now before it gets too hot. because in late july, it gets to 50 degrees celcius. yup, 122 degrees fahrenheit.
uh oh.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
classes, classes and more classes. frustration setting in.
well, since i havent written for a few days, perhaps you can guess why- school tends to take over ones life. and thats whats happened to me, and i dont like it very much.
i sit here in our little kitchen typing away so i dont wake up monica. its 1:35 a.m. here and i got out of class 3 and a half hours ago and have class in 7 and a half hours due to a change in my schedule tomorrow because of the spain soccer game. ugh, i dont like that very much....
i woke up monday morning a little uneasy knowing that it was the first day of classes. monica was already gone because she has morning classes and i had to wait around for my class which started at 4. i go from 4 to 9 with an hour break monday through friday. its quite a bit and i know i will get worn out. nevertheless, im excited.
i left the room and started walking to class and i started to get reeeeeeal nervous. not only am i going to have to be on top of my spanish game, but now i will be having to retain information such as spain´s geography and spanish art history on top of all that. gosh what have i gotten myself into? :/
my first class was geography. ¨gosh this guy talks fast....¨ is the first thing that came to my mind. im going to be honest... its a bit frustrating because they know spanish is our second language, but they dont seem to cater to that by speaking AT LEAST a LITTLE slower and not cutting off their s's when it is a primary part of the word. thanks a lot southern spain spanish speakers. :/
so i sat there for an hour trying to retain what the heck he was talking about about spains rivers and mountain ranges and autonomies and provinces, etc. i sure LOVE geography.... but when its being thrown at me in another language, my head starts to spin.
luckily i had an hour break after that where i calmed myself down by writing in the travel journal maddie got me for my trip ;)
i then went to my second class of the day, my language class. the professor was really nice and she definately spoke slower for us and ahhhhh it was SO MUCH BETTER.
the class consists of 6 girls and then the female teacher. my ideal classroom setting if you ask me ;)
basically in this class, we just speak spanish the whole time. not one word of english has been spoken yet in any of my classes, mostly cuz none of the professors know how to speak english!
the professor was asking us if we had boyfriends, and most of us were responding "no" and one girl responded "no. especially not while im in spain!" hahahaha! i then responded, "si, si!" in agreement. we all laughed at that for a little while knowing that "what happens in spain stays in spain...." ;)
after 2 straight hours of that class, i got no break for my last class of the day which goes from 8 - 9. now this prof was INTERESTING. he walks into the classrom BELTING out some spanish opera song. he started the class by playing some song about Granada and singing and dancing along with it. he said that there are 4 very good baratone opera singers in spain. he showed pictures of 3 well known ones then showed a picture of himself and said that he was the fourth. haha. he was so into his presentation about himself that we all kinda looked around the classroom and didnt know if we should laugh with him or be freaked out.
turned out he was pretty cool. he went on to show us a biography about himself (but all in pictures). there were several of him naked as a young boy, then him at his first communion in his little priest outfit, then him with his "primer novia" (first girlfriend) and so on. none of it was relevant at all as most of it just talked about random things that have happened in his life. aileen and i have that class together and we just laughed the whole time cuz this guy was crazy. literally. he also kept striking random poses then pausing and looking at us as if he was seeking our approval. i just kept smiling at him.....i give him credit cuz the things he was doing sure take a high level of self esteem and a positive self concept. ;)
finally classes were over, and by the first day, i had plenty of homework to do, plenty to worry about and i was already exhausted. ay, this will be a long month.
came home and wanted to sit down for a minute but monica (literally) pushed me out the door to join her and the group for tappas and drinks. we walked around and heard noises of drumming in the distance. we walked toward the noise and saw some kind of dance going on in the middle of one of the squares. there were 2 ladies wearing i dont know what prancing around this space literally acting out the movements of different animals (at least thats how i saw it). it was the strangest thing i have ever seen in my life. what the heck are they doing??? i kept asking myself. then all the sudden one of them got into this plastic wrap and the other got this hose that blew air (where did she get it from? who knows) and started blowing air into this plasic wrap and it started blowing up into a ball and as it rose, the woman inside starting dancing around again. suddenly there was this huge plastic ball on the stage and this woman was literally rolling around in it like a hamster. i cant explain it in any other way. and they call this dancing? gosh, if i lived in spain, i could easily be considered a professional dancer, too. just give me a weird outfit and a blow up ball and i'll prance around like an animal any day.
today was another long day of classes. it was a long day in particular. nothing was working for me. the printer at school didnt work, the keyboards in spain are WAY different than in the u.s. which meant i couldnt type anything at school, my password wouldnt work, i couldnt find scissors, the bookstore was closed whenever i checked because of stupid siesta (sometimes siesta is a real annoyance!), etc. nothing was going my way today and i really realized that i was experiencing what you would call, "culture shock." im not used to the laid back lifestyle here and i am used to stores being open and people being more available and.... of course, im used to learning primarily in english. ***woooooooooooo, deep breaths katie** this has been an awesome trip, but i will admit, it has also been extremely challenging to adjust to how much different spanish sounds here than it does in the u.s.
ok so this has been more of a serious, vent my emotions post, so, let me end with a funny story that happened when aileen and i were walking home tonight. we were talking about birthdays and how her and her brother share a birthday and how my dad and i do too. then, suddenly, out of no where, this old, very unattractive (sorry, but seriously) man jumps in front of us and goes, "hevlo...!" (attempting to say "hello" in english), gives us this creepy smile and then runs off!! we look at each other like, "what the heck!?" and then we both just LAUGH.
i mean, common dude, if your going to try and pick up a few american girls, step up your game and at least: 1. try and look presentable 2. know how to say hello in english and 3. dont run off after you try and make a move! sheesh.
men these days, i tell ya.
i sit here in our little kitchen typing away so i dont wake up monica. its 1:35 a.m. here and i got out of class 3 and a half hours ago and have class in 7 and a half hours due to a change in my schedule tomorrow because of the spain soccer game. ugh, i dont like that very much....
i woke up monday morning a little uneasy knowing that it was the first day of classes. monica was already gone because she has morning classes and i had to wait around for my class which started at 4. i go from 4 to 9 with an hour break monday through friday. its quite a bit and i know i will get worn out. nevertheless, im excited.
i left the room and started walking to class and i started to get reeeeeeal nervous. not only am i going to have to be on top of my spanish game, but now i will be having to retain information such as spain´s geography and spanish art history on top of all that. gosh what have i gotten myself into? :/
my first class was geography. ¨gosh this guy talks fast....¨ is the first thing that came to my mind. im going to be honest... its a bit frustrating because they know spanish is our second language, but they dont seem to cater to that by speaking AT LEAST a LITTLE slower and not cutting off their s's when it is a primary part of the word. thanks a lot southern spain spanish speakers. :/
so i sat there for an hour trying to retain what the heck he was talking about about spains rivers and mountain ranges and autonomies and provinces, etc. i sure LOVE geography.... but when its being thrown at me in another language, my head starts to spin.
luckily i had an hour break after that where i calmed myself down by writing in the travel journal maddie got me for my trip ;)
i then went to my second class of the day, my language class. the professor was really nice and she definately spoke slower for us and ahhhhh it was SO MUCH BETTER.
the class consists of 6 girls and then the female teacher. my ideal classroom setting if you ask me ;)
basically in this class, we just speak spanish the whole time. not one word of english has been spoken yet in any of my classes, mostly cuz none of the professors know how to speak english!
the professor was asking us if we had boyfriends, and most of us were responding "no" and one girl responded "no. especially not while im in spain!" hahahaha! i then responded, "si, si!" in agreement. we all laughed at that for a little while knowing that "what happens in spain stays in spain...." ;)
after 2 straight hours of that class, i got no break for my last class of the day which goes from 8 - 9. now this prof was INTERESTING. he walks into the classrom BELTING out some spanish opera song. he started the class by playing some song about Granada and singing and dancing along with it. he said that there are 4 very good baratone opera singers in spain. he showed pictures of 3 well known ones then showed a picture of himself and said that he was the fourth. haha. he was so into his presentation about himself that we all kinda looked around the classroom and didnt know if we should laugh with him or be freaked out.
turned out he was pretty cool. he went on to show us a biography about himself (but all in pictures). there were several of him naked as a young boy, then him at his first communion in his little priest outfit, then him with his "primer novia" (first girlfriend) and so on. none of it was relevant at all as most of it just talked about random things that have happened in his life. aileen and i have that class together and we just laughed the whole time cuz this guy was crazy. literally. he also kept striking random poses then pausing and looking at us as if he was seeking our approval. i just kept smiling at him.....i give him credit cuz the things he was doing sure take a high level of self esteem and a positive self concept. ;)
finally classes were over, and by the first day, i had plenty of homework to do, plenty to worry about and i was already exhausted. ay, this will be a long month.
came home and wanted to sit down for a minute but monica (literally) pushed me out the door to join her and the group for tappas and drinks. we walked around and heard noises of drumming in the distance. we walked toward the noise and saw some kind of dance going on in the middle of one of the squares. there were 2 ladies wearing i dont know what prancing around this space literally acting out the movements of different animals (at least thats how i saw it). it was the strangest thing i have ever seen in my life. what the heck are they doing??? i kept asking myself. then all the sudden one of them got into this plastic wrap and the other got this hose that blew air (where did she get it from? who knows) and started blowing air into this plasic wrap and it started blowing up into a ball and as it rose, the woman inside starting dancing around again. suddenly there was this huge plastic ball on the stage and this woman was literally rolling around in it like a hamster. i cant explain it in any other way. and they call this dancing? gosh, if i lived in spain, i could easily be considered a professional dancer, too. just give me a weird outfit and a blow up ball and i'll prance around like an animal any day.
today was another long day of classes. it was a long day in particular. nothing was working for me. the printer at school didnt work, the keyboards in spain are WAY different than in the u.s. which meant i couldnt type anything at school, my password wouldnt work, i couldnt find scissors, the bookstore was closed whenever i checked because of stupid siesta (sometimes siesta is a real annoyance!), etc. nothing was going my way today and i really realized that i was experiencing what you would call, "culture shock." im not used to the laid back lifestyle here and i am used to stores being open and people being more available and.... of course, im used to learning primarily in english. ***woooooooooooo, deep breaths katie** this has been an awesome trip, but i will admit, it has also been extremely challenging to adjust to how much different spanish sounds here than it does in the u.s.
ok so this has been more of a serious, vent my emotions post, so, let me end with a funny story that happened when aileen and i were walking home tonight. we were talking about birthdays and how her and her brother share a birthday and how my dad and i do too. then, suddenly, out of no where, this old, very unattractive (sorry, but seriously) man jumps in front of us and goes, "hevlo...!" (attempting to say "hello" in english), gives us this creepy smile and then runs off!! we look at each other like, "what the heck!?" and then we both just LAUGH.
i mean, common dude, if your going to try and pick up a few american girls, step up your game and at least: 1. try and look presentable 2. know how to say hello in english and 3. dont run off after you try and make a move! sheesh.
men these days, i tell ya.
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