Toledo!

   Today we went to the city of Toledo and it was beautiful! We've learned about Toledo in my Civilization class, so it was neat to actually go there and see the history come alive! They are known for having great Marzipan. I love school field trips for a few reasons: it's a guided tour of places in Spain and I do not have to arrange a thing, I love the teachers at my school, and I love getting to know other people that are studying abroad. They are from California, Arizona, Oklahoma, New York, Texas, and everywhere else but the South! I would rather speak Spanish to them because they didn't comment on my southern accent that is so unbelievable until I spoke English. Motivation.

   I'll be staying in Alcalá for the weekend! Midterms are this week and they might be the death of me. I do not know where this first half of the semester has gone? Why didn't I study abroad for a year!? I want to come back here to get my masters! Go UAH!

   Oh yeah, the new roomies are here! Now Swedish and Spanish are being spoken under one roof. What in the world?

Río Tajo, Toledo

Roomies for Life

Friends from the University of Arizona!

Holaholahola

• Last night we went to Media Pinta. It's this place that a lot of locals our age and we always go.
• Today the Art History class was taking a field trip to the Prado. I am not in that class but decided to go anyways and am so glad I did. For those of you who don't know, the Prado is a huge art museum with art from the 12th to the 19th century! I saw work by El Greco, Goya, Velázquez, and tons more. 
• After the museum we window-shopped, got coffee, and ate sushi at this awesome place off of Plaza Mayor.
• The weather has gotten a lot nicer. I hope I don't jinx it!
• News Flash: Irene (pronounced E-ray-nay) and her husband Peter are moving to Sweden. Irene is the daughter of my host family. Her and her husband are moving to Sweden, but first they are going to be living with us for one month. Can't wait to share this town house and a bathroom with another couple. This will make great stories.
• Dad- your package made my day! How I love getting American goodies in the mail.
• So sad that I won't be out at camp with all of my fellow staff members this weekend! Cannot wait to work in recreation this summer!
• Today I walked into the kitchen to find a leg of ham. Note the hoove.

re-cap

I've been neglecting blogging. Let's see what has happened...

• Monday I met my Intercambio María for the first time! We had coffee and chatted. An intercambio is when once person is native Spanish and is learning english, and I am the opposite, so we meet up and talk! I would talk in Spanish and she would talk in English. She is 22 and goes to the Universidad de Alcalá. It's really cool for us to be able to help each other!
• Aunt Helen was in Madrid! One of Sara's best friends has an aunt that is a flight attendant and happens to travel to Madrid often. Sara & I went to Madrid both Monday and Tuesday and had tapas and dinner with Aunt Helen! It was so refreshing to be around a nice Mom! 
• I met up with friends for tapas around the neighborhood a few times.
• I had Paella for the first time and it was soooo good!
• School isn't as easy as I thought. But it is nice being able to solely focus on Spanish for a semester!
• Field trip to El Pardo y El escorial. El Pardo is where Franco and a bunch of important Kings lived. I loved the decor. Very Anthropologie. El escorial had this room (I forgot what it is called) where a handful of Spanish Kings and Queens are buried. A room with their actual tombs. It was kind of strange. I don't know how many of these all Spanish tours I can understand! My attention span fades pretty quickly in English so this is a whole new ball park.
• Some of us went to the Mexican restaurant. It was so American! Delish. 
• Went to the Reina Sofia. Madrid's Modern Art Museum. The main piece is Picasso's Guernica. It was pretty big and people were swarming. Photo's weren't allowed but I snagged one, sorry Pablo.
• Highlight: Sara, Nikki, Amy and I decided to go to a Real Madrid game and we did and we won!!! We got nose-bleed tickets, as in no one was sitting behind us! We played Levante and won 2-0. It was insane! Before the game we went into a bar outside the stadium because we had time to kill and met a couple from Atlanta! It was strange seeing Southerners in the middle of Spaniards and at that moment I realized how much I stick out. Oh well.

weekend.

• Instituto B. Franklin took a field trip! I went to Segovia for the day for my Culture and Civilization class! I love my school and all of my teachers. We saw the Granja, which is like the Spanish version of Versailles. The Alcazar de Segovia was great, too. We had guided tours of both, in Spanish of course. Lots of history. This will be fun writing my paper about it. Oh and we saw the Aqueduct of Segovia which was so amazing! One of the best preserved monuments left on the Iberian Peninsula!
• Saturday morning = cookies for breakfast. Thanks, Pilar.
• We found a Mexican Restaurant in Alcalá! Maybe I will take myself out for Valentine's Day? 
• Went to the Retiro Park- Madrid's version of Central Park. I like it better though. My feelings of nationalism are diminishing. Viva España! 
• One of the Auburner's turned 21! Legal in America woop woop, Chris! The place we were sitting outside of, by the Gran Vía, had these prostitutes working the corner. I couldn't help but watch because we were sitting right there! They would grab men as they walked by and the men would run away, accept for the occasional takers. It really is sad but shocking. You see something new everyday.
• Sushi. It was actually and all you can eat buffet. Food just kept coming around on a conveyer belt. Talk about heaven when you've been over here for a month. One of the sushi rolls had ham in it. That sums up Spain's love for ham. Por favor. We got there at 8:30 which is early for Spain dinner so we had the place to ourselves! 
• Trying to get the last train back from Madrid is always an experience when you are rushed. Maybe because I know that I wouldn't spend my Euros on taxi and the thought of staying until 6 a.m. is painful. Of course we had already gone through the ticket collector thing when Sara realized she didn't have the right coins. Our train was leaving in about 1 minute. Finally she found the right change and we are all sprinting through the train station. Reminder: We had eaten at a buffet prior to this so running wasn't feeling to great. Sara ran onto the up escalator, but she was going down. This was America's Funniest Home Videos quality.

Colegio

Today I volunteered at a Bilingual school here in Alcalá. I love it! I have my own group of about six kids and I am supposed to be teaching them English. They are all about ten years old. I got to the school today and they lady that is in charge of the volunteers was saying all of the directions really quickly in Spanish, so there is no telling if I did everything right. Basically, I have a group of students in hour increments. There english is surprisingly good for a ten year old! I had a lot of fun teaching them because I can learn a lot from them too, and they are hilarious. One of my groups started singing "I gotta feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas. It was hysterical.


I met some friends at the McDonalds next to home because it has free WiFi or "WeeFee" as the Spaniards pronounce it. We made plans to go to Barcelona, the Costa del Sol, Asturias, and Italy. It takes more time than I imagined to book planes, trains, hostels, etc. So excited for all of the traveling coming up in March. I'm praying that it is safe to go to Morocco because I am dying to see Africa! And ride a camel. Hurry up to this side of the pond, Dottie and Steve!


It's crazy that I have been living here for a whole month. Time flies. Everything seems way more normal. School seems normal, Spanish people don't seem as different, and Alcalá is homey. I feel like everyday here I learn 500 more things than I learn when in Auburn.


My mom will be here in two months to visit Spain and see me! I am SO excited. I think we will go to Sevilla. New Madre meet birth Madre. Who is my favorite? Just kidding Mom!!!


Tonight Spain is playing Colombia. Spain is in the team that won the world cup! That's right. Casillas. The goalie is my new favorite Spaniard. One of the best in Europe, might I add. I love watching fútbol with the family. 

Belgium

My first weekend trip was to BELGIUM! We flew RyanAir which is a super cheap airline in Europe. No complementary beverage and a scary landing. Friday morning the flight took off at 6:30 a.m. After a little confusion speaking with the taxi driver, we made it to the airport on time! We arrived in Brussels, Belgium by 9:00 a.m. ready to start the day. There were six of us in Belgium from Auburn! Let's see... Friday we spent most of the day roaming around Brussels. Thank goodness we packed light because we were carrying our bags with us. Besides the clothes on my back I just brought one extra outfit and some pajamas. We ran into these people doing some kind of scavenger hunt for work and they needed a picture with tourists, so they directed us to fun things to do. We went to see Manneken Pis, a statue of a little boy peeing that is super famous. There were waffles everywhere! Belgium is known for it's chocolate, beer, fries, mussels, and waffles. Oh, and it's lace! We hung out in the Grand Place for a while and did a little shopping, or more like looking. Then we went to the Royal Palace. Brussels is so beautiful, partly because people there speak English, French, and Dutch! 

Next stop: Bruges. Sara and I decided we wanted to spend the night in Bruges, which is less than an hour away from Brussels. So we hop on a train after making friends with these English speaking ladies. Turned out they were from the USA but moved to Paris ten years ago "when the political climate in the US was unfavorable." You do the math. Telling them we were from the South didn't help our friendship too much. Turns out we had to switch trains. On to friend number two: a Belgian himself. Meet Luciaan. He was traveling from his University town to Bruges where he is from. Some people in Europe think Americans are interesting, want to learn about our culture, and practice their English. So, Luciaan or "Lotion" as we liked to call him offered to show us around Bruges the next day. Free tour guide and native to the city. I say yes. Since our phones don't work outside of Spain we planned on meeting him at 10:00 a.m. in a Cafe next to the Hostel that we did not stay in. Once we arrived in Bruges it was amazing from then on! I want to move there. I felt like I traveled back a few centuries in time because of the stunning architecture.Saturday Luciaan met us at ten and the tour began! I know it may seem a little strange that we met this guy on the train and ended up spending a few hours going around town with him, but we made it out alive and saw so much more! He said he could write about this experience in his portfolio. Whatever. We went everywhere. We walked through the Market Square, which is the center of town, and saw the Belfry. I bought some lace at one of the 1231203 lace shops. I ate so much chocolate, there were Chocolatiers literally everywhere. We went to Choco-Story, just a museum dedicated to chocolate and how it has evolved and why Belgium has the best. We got to watch a demonstration of how fine chocolates are made. I think I've found my calling in life. We went in this one Chocolatier called "Dumon" and when we told the lady we were from America she asked us if we knew Rick Steves. Haha, our country is bigger than yours. Then she showed us a picture of Rick & family eating her chocolate. Rick doesn't mess around with bad chocolate. That might have been the most delicious thing to ever touch my palette. Don't worry family, I did so some things that didn't have to do with food. We went in the Basilica of the Holy Blood which claims that it has Christ's blood brought back from the Crusades. It was beautiful. We also went to the Church of Our Lady and saw Michelangelo's Madonna and Child. This is his only piece outside of Italy. Go Belgium! Don't worry, we also saw Madonna and Child carved out of white chocolate. Fun fact: they call Bruges the Venice of the North. The canals throughout the city were gorgeous. There were swans and ducks in this one park. For lunch we tried Mussels! Not my favorite but if you eat them with fries it works. Late Saturday we took the train back to Brussels and met up with the rest of our friends. 

It was strange going back "home" to Spain. Pilar asked us if we spoke Spanish the whole weekend like we were supposed to. Pilar tends to be a little dictatorial. She read my face and said I have a guilty conscious. Traveling around Europe and seeing how many people speak three or more languages really makes me feel like a wimp! I am inspired. Ironically, Pilar fixed us fried Mussels for lunch and they were way better than the one's I tried in Belgium. Home Sweet Home.

 Brussels

 Ireland! Sike.

 Belgian eating a Belgian waffle

 Delicious

 Manneken Pis

 Chocolate

 Lace Lace Lace

 Amigos

Mom- this is laughing cow cheese in french!

 Bruges!

 Peace at Belfry

 Luccian

 Madonna & Child by Michelangelo

 Beautiful Belgium

 So much cheeeeese

Chocolate!