Sorry its been forever my dear readers :) so, since I've done so much, this will seem like a really random blog...

So for Halloween, Paige and I went over to Michael and Robby's house to straighten Michael's curly hair :)It took us about 45 minutes, but was soooo fun! After this, we headed over to the professor's house for a Halloween party.
The party was really fun--we ate candy and carved pumpkins...



On Thursday night, we went to the MTC to volenteer--this is the temple from the window.

Helping the new missionaries was a ton of fun! The two elders that I listened to had been in Madrid for 3 weeks; one was from Ogden, Utah, and the other was from England. They spoke very well for only having been there for--yaya for the gift of tongues!

After this, we (Me, Paige, Carmen, Raven, and Robby) went salsa dancing at a little club in Puerta del Sol. It was way cool--especially considering we didn't have to pay to get in. I guess we forgot the fact that we had a trip the next morning because we didn't leave until 2am...

This weekend was our last trip. We spent the day in Toledo, and it was gorgeous!

I hope this picture looks alright--I just found this panoramic setting on my camera a few weeks ago....I've only had my camera for a year now....anyways, Toledo is famous for their gold works among other things so I got some pretty jewelry and other stuff that I won't mention because they're Christmas presents :)

Don't worry family, I am making friends :)

By the way, this picture above is the group I'll be traveling with afterwards! (The guy kissing Paige is Bill, or Will, or whatever we feel like calling him that day... :))


So this morning, Encarni woke us up around 10am (Paige was not happy about this) to tell us she had made us churros and chocolate for breakfast! I dont know if you can tell from this picture, but the chocolate is like pudding...

and the churros are not the kind of things you get a costco...


Anyways, the idea is to dip the churros into your huge glass of chocolate pudding--while that sounds like heaven, keep in mind this little fact that I totally didnt realize. You're expected to drink whatever chocolate is leftover in your cup after you eat your churros........lets just say that this was one of the more painful spanish experiences as it was much too early for chocolate anyways, and its much too this and semi-sweet to enjoy. I couldnt finish and came straight upstairs to lie down for a few hours.

Anyways, heres a picture of us (still in pj's) eating. From left to right: Encarni, Edu, Suzie, Paige, Me, Angel.


Here's another family Pic that we took after the talent show tonight...

WARNING: long blog post.......

Hello everyone! I'm back from my week-long trip to southern Spain, and I have a TON to tell you! As a preface to my tales, I'd like to say that Spain is Wonderful and I'm often totally caught off guard by how beautiful the things we get to see are (as you'll see in this post) and I feel SOOOOO grateful that I get to be here :)

so...

First off, we stopped at La Mancha--what's that from...anybody? anybody?? yep, Don Quixote's home town :) so of course we stopped by the windmills and castle for pictures and to read the famous part of the book where Quixote battles it out with the windmills, much to Sancho Panza's distress.



ya, I like this last one too :)
Also, at the castle at La Mancha, we of course had to have photo shoots, but also video shoots. This is my friend Robby doing a little Jason Bourne action--he thought he was so cool until he twisted his ankle :) Jovencito.....



Finally, about five hours after taking off from from Alcala, we reached Cordoba. Just as a little history for everyone, the Arabs controlled Spain for about 800 years before the reign of the Catholic Kings--this means that there is a ton of architecture left behind from them, mostly in the south since they came from Africa. So heres some pictures from Cordoba:



This is a really famous street in Cordoba where everybody takes pictures, so I did too...




Then we went to Seville! This place is also big in Arabic/Spanish history not to mention it's gorgeous! We first went to the Real Alcazar palace where they have awesome buildings but the real prize winner is the gardens--I thought for sure I had walked into a rain forest!



Also, in the south, but especially in Seville, there are orange trees lining the streets--I kid you not. They're EVERYWHERE! Unfortunaly they're all pretty green this time of year, but I did find one that had some orange oranges:


Between Cordoba and Seville, we stopped at Madinat al-Zahra, or at least its ruins. There's a lot of history to it--a massive city built b the Caliph Abd al-Rahman III and sacked by I think the Christians, and not redescovered until 1911. You should look it up :)


Also in Seville, the HUMONGO Catedral de Maria

And the Plaza de Espana, where supposudly some scene from some Star Wars episode was filmed...you'll have to tell me if you can figure it out.


But the best part of Seville (and probably the whole trip) was the Flamenco show we went to! I was AMAZED at how awesome it was! It's like a combination of tap, ballet, ballroom, and modern (at least how I see it), and it is pure, uncontained emotion that I loved!!! You would have LOVED it! I took video of every performance, and someday i'll have good enough internet to load it...





The last stop was Granada where we saw The Alhambra which consisted of the Palacio de Carlos V and Generalife (gardens of the palace). This place was really cool to, and when I say gardens of palaces, I mean miles and miles and miles of trees, flowers, waterfalls, ponds, birds, etc. etc. etc. It was gorgeous! When we first got there, the professors told us we had 5 hours to look around, and I thought they were crazy--but it almost wasn't enough time! I wish I could post more pictures, but my camera kind of died, so google it!



Best Ice Cream of my LIFE!!!

So this is Spain...

Hello Everyone!!!!
Sorry it's been FOREVER since I last posted...
To catch you up, i'm going to just throw alot of random happenings at you:

I've set my travel plans for after the program. We're going to Rome, then London, Ireland, then Scotland. We've found some pretty sweet plane ticket prices, and have bought 3 already--now we're just waiting for the next ryair sale to buy the other two. Thanks for all the advice about where to travel--I took everything into consideration and made plans based on what I wanted to do, and i'm REALLY excited/pleased about my decision :)

Also, people have been asking me, "has it dawned on you ÿet that you're actually in Spain?" The answer to this question is YES. And some days the answer is HECK YES. Here's my top 10--you know you're in Spain when:

1. Old ladies walk around the town, dressed up in their nicest dress suits, arm in arm.
2. You can hardly fit in the bathrooms because they're soooo small.
3. There's no drinking fountains anywhere.
4. There is some sort of festival going on every week. In Spain, its always time to party!
5. Dogs everywhere. Dog poop everywhere.
6. The supermarkets dedicate whole isles to white, bottled asparagus and digestive cookies.
7. Pepper is the spiciest thing available for your food--in fact when you put a fair amount of it on anything, people look at you like you're superman.
8. Personal space is disregarded. At first this is strange, but then you realize it's actually really great. I've never seen so much affection between kids and their parents in the middle of the street or at the store. Hugs and Kisses all around!
9. Sanitation is a little weird. When you go to the supermarket, you have to where plastic gloves to handle the fruit and vegtables, and they wash the streets with these weird cars and people carrying hoses everyday. However, when you go to a restraunt or even to fast food, they are using their bare hands to cook and handle money at the same time. Not to mention the dog poop everywhere...
10. Everyone listens to American music. One day we were sitting on the bus coming home, and two other girls sat next to us. When they saw that we spoke english they asked us where we were from and then pulled out their cell phone to have us listen to their favorite American song:
Destiny's Child--Say My Name. Ya....They're a little behind, but I dig the fact that we get to listen to Rod Stewart and Queen from the bus radio on the way to school.


Last night we went to a medieval festival here in Alcala. It was HUGE! I ate some really weird food, but it was really good! The shops lined the whole main street and branched off into two plazas and more side streets. (For those of you unfamiliar with Alcala--just know thats really big.)

Markets are pretty cool in general--they're the best places to buy jewelry, scarfs, tableclothes, and fresh fruit and veggies. The bigger ones are just like you see in the movies, people yelling prices at you, trying to get you to buy things, and raising prices at the slightest hint of english. Needless to say, whenever we stop to look at something, we dont speak, and then I ask the price in my best castellano "eh, cuanto cuestha?" :)

Vale vale vale. pronounced like Bale, is the greatest phrase since "No entiendo..." Basically when people are speaking to you really fast and thinking you catch everything they say, instead of saying "No entiendo" (I dont understand) you can just say "Vale" which means "I do understand" or "That totally makes sense!" This usually makes them happy and they dont look at you like you're stupid, or worse, try to explain it again really loudly/slowly, in your face with hand signals. Vale.

Until next time!

This is what happened today.

Paige and I put it back together and we're going to wait until someone else sits in it to blame them.

No, I dont feel bad about it because I was just sitting in it--It broke on ME!!!

I would just like to put out there that this is just my own series of unfortunate events...

Forgetting to tell Encarni that my pink scarf was new and hadn't yet been washed before throwing it in the dirty clothing hamper:

(Turned all of the other laundry pink)

Accidentally eating Edu's (my 21 year old spanish brother) arroz con leche for breakfast:

(For a 21 year old, he is quite the pouter)

And on the second day upon arriving in Spain, I ran my head into the attic cealing causing a rather large dent:

(Encarni found out yesterday)

**DISCLAIMER**

None of these incidents are my fault. Even the arroz con leche mishap becuase Edu should have eaten it when everyone else was eating it instead of leaving it in the fridge in the home of 3 very hungry college girls. That is all.

So, today was eventful.

First off, my roomates and I were stuck in the worst traffic jam EVER on our way to school. We waited for the bus to come for about 20 minutes before we were just about to start walking-then it came.

We got on the bus and we hadn't even gotten to the next stop when we were in a traffic jam. We sat on the bus for another 20 minutes before we looked around to the front to see what was ahead of us--cars as far as the eye could see, all the way up onto the freeway.

We got off the bus and walked.

Three reasons for this strange happening in Alcala:

1. Some Saint celebration in Alcala that calls for a pilgramage

2. Busdrivers on strike

3. It rained (lack of drainage on roads=accidents)

In the end, we were only 45 minutes late for class.

ANYWAYS...

Spain lacks alot of flavor. I noticed that when I eat things here, I only taste to different flavors at once, at most. So, we decided it was time to make a little guacamole to excite the tastebuds. After much searching, we found the last avocados of the season at an open air market held only on mondays in the middle of nowhere in Alcala. We also got tomatoes, onions, cilantro, and lemons. However, there were no hot peppers to be found...we decided to go to Carrefour (Spain's Wal-mart).

For the first time since arriving in Spain though, Carrefour dissapointed me. No hot peppers whatsoever. You wouldnt believe it, but they have a WHOLE ENTIRE ISLE DEDICATED TO ASPARAGUS, yet no peppers hotter than a bell. Yes. It's true.

The point is, my guac was good, but not excellent.

As if this weren't bad enough, I had Encarni try my guacamole (which she has never had). I was so excited for her Spanish tastebuds, but alas, she hated it. She didn't even pretend to like it. Your should have seen her face.

A Day in Madrid

So, I’ve been to Madrid plenty of times, but yesterday was really good for lots of simple reasons. We went for the purpose of eating at a little café dubbed “The Hemmingway Café” just because Hemmingway ate there—not that that should really matter anyways because Hemmingway is a sexist, amoral fiend. But continuing…we found it and ate much too expensive tapas and limon granizados.

After this we decided to try our hand at the metro (I should probably mention that by “we”, I mean Paige and Bill and I). Our goal this time was to find “The American Store”…Bill really needed some grits…
Anyways, we found it and I got some cake mix, pancake mix, and syrup to make for Encarni (our Señora). Success.

Our next stop was the Parque de Retiro. It’s this gorgeous park in the middle of Madrid with a pond and ancient statues and such—since everything in Spain is ancient…
There were lot of street performers and painters and people selling jewelry and what not. I bought a really cute shell necklace for 3 Euros that I’m very proud of :)

What I really enjoyed about this park though was the overall atmosphere. We just sat in the shade of the edifice and watched people boating in the pond and read Don Juan Tenorio…or at least tried :) No hurry, No worries.

Time to switch subjects…

Water shortage

Spain apparently doesn’t have a lot of water. Much to my frustration, a good chunk of my money goes to my personal hydration purposes. Lets say I buy a water bottle for 1,50 € and within 2 ½ minutes its gone. Well, I still have to walk around such and such city all day—what shall I do? Let me tell you something; there are NO drinking fountains ANYWHERE, so I can’t refill. In fact I’ve only seen 2 since being in Spain…My only option is to go to buy another water bottle for another 1,50 €.

I know, frustrating huh? If I don’t die of being hit by a bus, I’ll die of dehydration.

Which reminds me—last week our bus hit a car. Ya, cool huh?

That also reminds me—Paige and I defied death today by crossing 6 lanes of traffic in Madrid…NOT on the crosswalk. Bill was too scared to join us, needless to say :) In fact he jumped the first 3 lanes to the island, then got scared and jumped back leaving us there by ourselves…actually no, there was a strange French man who joined us even though his wife and daughter were on the other side, clearly upset by his actions…or maybe the French are always upset at something.

A morning in Alcala

So this morning started off well, though it started at 4:30 in the morning.
Ive recently discovered the joys of roomates. This morning Miss wheez N snort across the room and Miss Harley Davidson right next to me, made it next to impossible to sleep in until my 7am alarm. So, like a good roomate, I slowly pushed down the idea to smother them both in their sleep, and came up with the new idea to just get up...by this time it was 5am.

I took a nice, hot shower then went downstairs to make breakfast. Also as a sidenote Id like to add that I continued with my whole morning in utter darkness, at least when it came to the bedroom and stairwell (or as we like to call it, the spiral deathwell). Rather than fill my stomach with the ever pleasent, 100% fiber cereal, I made myself a scrambled egg sandwich with tomatoes and mayonaise on a baguete. For my readers sake, I would like to point out that, next to brushing your teeth, this is the best way to start out the morning.

After I finished getting ready, I headed down the street. However, I realized that it was only 7am, and that the school didnt open until 8:20. I decided to walk the 2 or so miles rather than take the bus. It was still dark out and a little chilly, but there were a few others (who I only assume are up because of THEIR roomates).

I reached the school around 7:30...too early.
So I sat outside in the plaza watching the pigeons and trying to get some reading done. Here in Alcala, things are loud, so I was pleasently surprised by the morning silence. I sat and listened for about a half an hour before I realized my toes were about to fall off from the cold. Suddenly, I heard church bells. I watched as a few nuns hobbled past me to the other opening of the plaza. The church bells kept ringing...so I decided to follow these nuns.

I reached a little cathedral just outside of the plaza and opened the door. There were a few people, and they were all staring at me, so I just popped in and sat in the back row.

DEAD SILENCE...and warm.

After a few minutes, more people started coming in and the bells chimed again. All of a sudden, everyone stood up and a man in a HUGE red robe walked in and stood at the pulpit. He began reading scriptures out of the bible and everyone would cross themselves and repeat certain words. So at this point Im feeling a little silly because I am the only one sitting down and gawking. But whatever, I thought. It was a very nice service and by the time I left and walked back to the school, it was exactly 8:25.