That's What She Said

Ouch, sorry once again folks. Life is surprisingly quite busy, and I am unsurprisingly lazy. So Barcelona, and some other fun things that have happened. We'll start with the flight. It was fine. Valladolid airport is SUPER tiny. I mean, there's like nothing there. So that's where we flew out. It was a good predictor of how the weekend would go. We were silly and started making way too many "That's what she said" jokes that continued on for the rest of our trip. It was short, too. I guess that's because Barcelona's really not that far, but then we needed a bus to get to Plaza Catalunya before walking to our hostel. It was late and dark and we didn't really have a good handle of the city, but we're just very unprepared travelers. Luckily it has always worked out for us. Anyway, we DID get to the hostel safe and sound. The place was amazing. With a name like Hip Karma, we were thinking it'd be totally sketchy, but it was really nice. The bed were bunked and curtained, which I enjoyed a lot. We had free wifi, a kitchen (with everything needed to cook), and the bathrooms were super nice too for being community style. Basically, our  hostel was wonderful. I really kind of miss it.

Saturday brought us delicious french toast courtesy of Steven, our great chef of the weekend, and a trip back to Catalunya to purchase some tour bus tickets! Yes, we are dorks, but it was actually really nice. We rode on the second level so we got to see everything and it brought us directly to the places we wanted to hit up. Tourist buses are cool, man. Anyway, that day we got to Montjuic, which is this old gypsy village up near the mountains. It was also this village that the Spanish government cleared out in order to host the Olympic games in Barcelona. Kind of douchey if you ask me, but the stadium was flipping awesome. We got to go inside and look around a bit. Most of it was closed off, but it was so weird thinking that not even 20 years ago, some of the best athletes in the world were competing here for the honor of their countries. There was also a cool fountain and other great things to take pictures of. Of course, they are on Facebook. We also met up with Andrea's friend that was studying in Spain around this time, too.

After our Montjuic adventure, we walked around looking for some food and found this little tapas place. The food was pretty good, and the owner was super nice. A couple of us also got a drink, and dang! was it strong. Not even joking. I was buzzing hardcore after one sangria. It was ridiculous. But then after we made it down the port and coast. It was right at sunset, and although we wanted to make it all the way to Barceloneta, the beach, I think we got some wonderful pictures anyway. Also, some crepes, YUM! Later that night, Emily and Lisa went to the Barcelona game, so we headed back to the hostel for some more of Steve's cooking and some ridiculous dancing. It was a great time. After being outside all day, it was nice to just chill a little in the hostel and have fun.

Next day was our Gaudi day. Gaudi, for those of you who don't know, was an architect during the Modernism art period. He was pretty much a forerunner of the movement and was a a complete genius. Basically, I have a crush on him. Anyway, we hit up La Sagrada Familia, which is Gaudi's masterpiece. It's uncomplete and has been worked on for over 100 years now. Although Gaudi died some time ago, all of his scale models and plans have remained. Even unfinished this place is absolutely stunning. I walked in and my mouth literally dropped open. There is no way to describe exactly how it makes you feel but I could spend forever in there looking at things. The facades on the outside are Biblical stories and the artwork is just stunning. Then you get inside and everything is colorful with the stained glass and precise. The details blew my mind. Everything is contoured as well. There's not a straight line in the place. I would love to go back to see it once it's been completed.

Later we made it down to Park Guell, which is where Gaudi lived and has been turned into a huge park. This place is also gorgeous. Near the entrance there's a lot of Gaudi's work, and as you move away it turns more into manipulation of nature to accent the beauty and make pathways and such. Emily and I explored quite a bit of it and got to see the entire city from one of the hills at the top. We were also little rebel children and jumped a fence to get back over to the main area. There were also some guys playing music in this little alcove in the front. They sounded unbelievable. The echoes just made my mind go blank and listen to how beautiful the sound was. We caved and bought CDs, but I say it was quite a good investment.

That night was pasta night. Steve was basically our live saver when it came to food. It was so good, even if he said it wasn't, but whatever. We enjoyed it and then it was time to cruise on over to the bar for some FOOOOOTBAAAAAAAALLL! Yes, I did indeed watch the game in Barcelona. I wish I could have been home for it, but here I got to drink in a public place and swear at the top of my lungs without getting yelled at by my parents. Before the game started, we also sang some Karaoke, crazy right? It was "Hey Jude," and it was actually a lot of fun. However, I don't think I'd like to sing in  front of a group of people in a country where people actually know me. Also, there were some guys that we met from Spain in Packer jerseys. They admitted they were fans and when we asked them why, they asked us if we knew about "That 70's Show!" Yes, they are Packer fans because of a TV program. Love it! But the game was so exciting. I pretty much was one of the loudest people there. Staying up that late was totally worth it. I also lost my voice for a few days afterward, and now I'm sick... so I'm not sure if my voice is a little off from the game or being sick.

Monday was our last day and we were going to go to Las Ramblas, a big outdoor shopping street, and the beach. It was a lot of fun. Emily met up with her friend that lives in Barcelona while we wandered a bit. Most of the stands were very touristy, but we did find a big market where Andrea and I tried cactus flower and coconut juice. Surprisingly delicious. I also got some music by a Spanish composer at this little Beethoven music shop. We wandered around until we met back up with Emily, right after getting some good ole-fashioned KFC and McDonalds. So we continued on our quest for the beach, but not before stopping in a sex shop for all of 2 min. It was a little awkward being in there during broad daylight with other people in there. It was back on the road again, and we finally reached the sea to make our way down to Barceloneta when the other Emily realized her wallet was missing. It turned into a frantic search to find it; however, our attempts were fruitless and we instead had to go to the police station to file a report. Hopefully all will go well. Emily got her cards canceled right away and still had her debit card and passport, so it really was the best scenario for a bad situation. By this time we had to head on back to our hostel and get all of our stuff to get back on the plane to Valladolid. Again, another good flight. We got there on time, so this silly little fanfare played, but then we had to wait for over an hour for the bus to get us back into the city. That part was rather unfortunate.

And that was pretty much our Barcelona trip. I'll be updating soon on the rest of our adventures over the past week or so.

When in Spain, Buy Hooker Boots

Again, it's been quite some time. Do I see a pattern coming? Might just be that. Life is getting to some of the mundane parts. We're full time students. Our History class has been reinstated (cuz our professor was gone for two weeks), and I've already had 2 tests with another tomorrow. I should be studying for that, but I thought of all of you instead and decided to update you on my life. How sweet am I?

There is probably going to be no order to this, and I will write things as I remember. We had a fun weekend out. We finally found the chocolate shots! We were really proud of ourselves, and the place is pretty nice. Basically, we will be going back. And on our return, we never ran into the perro! It's so wonderful. I'm really glad that we've had a few walks back in complete safety. Although, we do plan escape routes every time we walk back.

I also started teaching on Monday. I'm helping an 8 yr old girl with her work in school. She attends a bilingual school here in Spain, so her classes in English change often. I'm also supposed to  help her with her speaking. It's pretty low-key and laid back, but I really enjoy it. The first session went well, so I'm looking forward to keep working with her. Plus, I get paid pretty damn well.

We went to see Todo Sobre Mi Madre on Tuesday... so, yesterday. It's one of our cultural excursion type things. It was good, but a little weird. There was a lot of Spanish cursewords, and therefore I enjoyed it. I'm not sure if I'd suggest it to many people because, one) it was in Spanish and two) not sure who would really be into it. Almodovar is a different kind of director, but very famous here in Spain. He also directed Volver. I guess if you really like Penelope Cruz I'd tell you to check him out, cuz she's in a lot of his films.

Let's see, what else? The World Cup trophy was in Valladolid the other day. The queen also came to visit. Our Barcelona trip is planned (and said planning involved some damn good frozen Bailey's coffee) and we depart tomorrow. That led to an inevitable trip to the bus station today to figure out how to get to the airport. Along the way we found a Domino's and a sex shop. Oh, I love this place.

I guess that's it. Like I said, it hasn't been nearly as exciting lately. Maybe it still seems exciting to you all, but it's really starting to become my home, so it's slowly becoming just as boring as Eau Claire or Geebs. Haha. Also, I do miss the snow, guys. You're all on the news for it here in Spain. Makes me wanna come back to watch the Super Bowl (which I will still watch in Barcelona this weekend). Until next time.

They Aren't Applauding Cuz We Left, Right?

Jeeze, I'm really starting to suck at this, lo siento chicos. Basically a lot has happened since I last updated, so I feel like this is gonna be a doozy. Let's begin with about where we left off, last weekend. I'm sure something happened in school, but I know you all don't want to learn about what I'm learning. Oh, besides the class thing, we went to El Castillo, which has the most amazing churros con chocolate on the face of the earth (or at least that I've tried so far) where we were invited to some Celtic music thing later that night at a cafe. It ended up not being exactly what we expected, but a good time nevertheless. Plus it was away from Calle Santiago where the Grim lives (because he showed up again Thursday night after we went out to the bars). And then the next day we went to Segovia.

I'm not going to gush every detail of the day here because it would probably bore you all to pieces, so I will just give a preview and (hopefully) soon there will be a fully commentated slew of fotos on facebook. If you don't have my facebook, you're probably a creep and should stop reading about my life. Just kidding, but seriously. Anyway, Segovia; it's pretty spectacular. It's even smaller than Valladolid, but unlike this precious city in which I'm currently living, Segovia has a giant freaking aqueduct at the entrance to the city. This aqueduct was the product of the Romans in the 1st century. It's still standing quite solidly without any use of cement. It was a little terrifying but awe-inspiring at the same time. We proceeded to be lead through the city by one of our 3 male professors because apparently the women know nothing about Segovia. That's probably not true, but the male teachers are the ones with subjects that deal with visiting cities. We learned a lot about how the city was built/decorated before they let us loose for a  small break. We checked out the Catedral (Cathedral) there which was the last gothic cathedral constructed in all of Spain. Besides costing 3 euros, I'd said it was pretty neat, but it wasn't any warmer and I'm not particularly religious so I could've done without in all honesty. Following the Catedral, a small group ventured over to the contemporary art museum. It was much better and cheaper. One of the exhibits was cinematography about a woman who painted her lover's shadow and is now the only art left after an attack. There was also some strange hand puppetry about Zeus and one of his lovers. It got awkward. Then the last was a room with different photos of people standing in front of famous art which appeared like they were in the art itself. The last thing we checked out were some Esteban Vicente pieces. They were very he-got-paid-for-this-how?, but I did enjoy it. The only problem was that my mind liked to make me think that the colors were bleeding into one another when they definitely weren't. Also, one of the employees followed us around the entire time like we were going to pocket one of the paintings the size of an ancient computer and run off with it. And then it was time for Alcazar! So this is the castle is Segovia. We got a very awesome tour of it, led once again by one of our professors. Lots of history, humor, and horror. The fotos will explain much better about some of these themes. Then we got the chance to walk up to the top of the tower, which I did, of course. 152 steps later (yes, that is bigger than the Hill in Eau Claire), I got to see one of the most gorgeous sights of my life. We once again had some free time in which we looked at touristy shops and bought some delicious concoction from a sweet shoppe. Seems like it went by fast, and it did, but dang I was sore by the end and slept the whole way home.

That night we returned to Valladolid and our houses like little freezie pops. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I KNOW it's freaking cold in Wisconsin, but you also have ski jackets. I have a fleece and the interior coat from my winter jacket. Not sufficient, especially when walking about 30-45 min home at night. Our host mom wanted us to go take a shower (not together) to warm up... which is extremely weird because I can't even leave the hot water running when taking a shower, so she must have been really concerned. Which reminds me of this great story I haven't yet shared.

So, I'm on our balcony hanging up my laundry when Belen lets someone in the house. She calls Katie out and I hear a man's voice. I'm mildly curious, but don't leave my chores at that moment. Of course this didn't last long and I went to see who was here. It was a police officer in full uniform. Belen asks if he needs to talk to me, too, and he says yes! It was the casual exchange of niceties before he drops the bomb. "Documentation" I'm sure you can figure out what that means. At the same time, Katie is coming out of our room with her passport in hand. We have NO idea what's going when Belen bursts out laughing! Turns out it was a huge joke and the police officer was her friend that she invited up since it was so chilly.

Back to the frigid night, we decided to go out, but not far because 1) we didn't think we could make it and 2) we didn't want to walk on Calle Santiago. We ended up finding a little cafe not far from home. We got hot chocolate and it was a good time.

Sunday was a relaxing day. Got some more churros con chocolate with Andrea, Kelsey, and Esteban before seeing wizards on our way home. Yes, there are wizards in Spain. Okay, probably not, but they were wearing cloaks and looked like wizards, no joke. So I've decided I need to try to get into the Ministry of Magic here, somehow. The rest of the day was sleepy, lazy, and homework filled which is never fun, so I will not bore you with those facts.

So these past three days... I'm just going to sum up. School is going well still. I don't think it's ever going to be too bad except facing my oh-so-favorite professor. I talked to the family of the little girl I'm going to be teaching. So I have made my first official Spanish phone call. It was frightening and an experience I wish not to repeat. Tuesday led to the discovery of Blanco, a clothing shop that is freakishly like ModCloth... I might have some problems over here. It was also the day of the first meal I didn't like! It was mushrooms, so you can't really blame me, right? And then the big event of today was my getting a library card and checking out the first 3 Harry Potter books in Spanish. It is my goal to read them while I'm here, and I'm very excited. One last exciting thing before I go, Superbowl Sunday. I'm gonna watch it at a bar here at 2 am in the freaking morning! Pumped!

I'll Call Him Hot Pudding

Oof. It's Thursday already. Where we last left off, I was about to purchase my Grammar book, which was not in... yet again. Let's just say we had quite a few troubles with buying that book. I walked down to Fray Luis about 9 million times (and by that I mean like 5 or 6), but I did have great fun in the different bookstores. I really would like to return to Maxtor to spend a day looking through books there. I have a bit of an inanimate crush on the place, is that weird?

Hmm, let's see what else has happened. The days seem like a bit of a blur because we're finally getting into a routine around here, which is very nice. Also, I tend to waste a lot of time sleeping for much longer than siesta allows. Naps here are short; my body doesn't agree. So the proceeding tales have happened sometime between Monday evening and now.

Shopping: Yes, I've been shopping. It's good and bad. There are tons of rebajas (sales), so I don't feel too bad. I'm also doing pretty well because there are a lot of things that I could just buy impulsively and have not, so kudos to me on that one. I did buy jeggings, though... Not so sure how I feel about it myself, so please no judgment. 1) They were on sale, 2) they are extremely popular here, and 3) Andrea told me I needed them. They will stay here upon my return home more than likely. There was also a vair vair cute shirt that those that would judge about the jeggings would approve. Don't worry, I'm not completely insane just yet.

Cafes: We've stopped at a few cafes. I like them a little too much. I need to stop. Coffee here is completely and inexplicably wonderful. I always want more. Also had some good little sandwiches and ice cream. Phwoar! I have an addiction to helado (ice cream), so I'm surprised it took me this long to get some. I'm pretty sure there are some photos that shall be on Facebook in good time. There are tons of places to go here, though. Almost every time I turn around there's something else to try. Fun stuff.

Class: Class is well... class. We definitely have things to do, but it's no where nearly as much work as back home. I appreciate it. It also almost feels like high school because we don't really leave the room unless it's break. Beside that, I'm liking all the subjects so far. Some classes are much better than others, but I attribute that to the professors more than the subject area. None of the professors are bad, just some are less enthusiastic than others. And yes, I am actually doing by work around. It's not all fun and games- although there is a lot of that today.

Food: I love the food here. It's beyond yummy (almost all the time). I can't really remember too much of what we've eaten, but I had to put this in here for my funny story of the day. So I don't know if you all know this (I know my mum does), but I had a HUGE problem eating things like fish and chicken when I was little. If it had bones, I couldn't do it. My mom would take the meat off the bones, and even then I found things wrong with the food (like veins). Today we had some fish... with the spines still in them. I couldn't look at it. I did eat it, but I was freaking out the entire time. The one and only time I have not wanted to finish my food here. Okay, so that wasn't really as funny as I thought it would be. As cliche as it sounds, I think it was one of the things you had to see.

Other than that, I'm really loving it here. I feel like I've been here for such a long time already, and it's also crazy to think that we've really only been here a week and a half. Even more, I feel ready to go home at any moment. It's a weird conglomeration of feelings. I could easily stay in Valladolid like this for the rest of my life; I'd just have to take you all with me.

I Need to Buy Tooth Pasta

Still alive everyone! I know you were probably worried since it's been a while and the last thing I spoke of was seeing the Grim, but todo es vale!

So it's been a pretty good couple of days. We did not sleep in nearly so late on Sunday (even though I stayed up until halftime of the Packer game... so like 4 am or later?). We couldn't sleep in so we could go to the free Oriental Museum. Yeah, I know that sounds really strange because I'm in Spain, but they like to learn about other cultures here, too. Like I said, it was gratis, and apparently connected to a church? We walked into what we thought was the museum, and it turned out to be a mass. Needless to say, we quickly turned around and left feeling awkward before moving next door to the actual museum. It was very cool. I took a lot of fotos if you have not already seen them in Facebook. It was a grand time to be had by all. It had everything: comedy, pain, romance, music. Then after we left there was some big market type thing... I don't know, but I found more Harry Potter stuff! Wow, makes my life a little better here as if it's not stupendous enough.

The rest of the day was pretty chill. We ate and did homework. I siesta-ed for much too long again. It came to bite me in the butt later. I ended up writing the end of Cinderella (Cenicienta here) in Spanish. We'll see how that went. My reflexive verbs and object pronouns are probably really sketch, but whatever. It's called learning, after all. What else...? Yeah, I think that was all of Sunday.

School again today. Lunes (Monday) sucks even in Spain with wonderful classes like Grammar and Culture. We took a little break where we bought Magnum Gold! It's ice cream over which we get way too excited. Also, we spoke in Spanish for pretty much the entire time (over an hour). It's really good for us because when we have more than 2 or 3 people we convert to English very easily. Later we're going to go shop and hopefully buy our Grammar book. Oh well, more adventuras!

El Perro y el Creeper

Welcome back, all! So discoteca was not discoteca but a good time anyway. There was mucho confusion about getting to the place. Lisa (who talks to everyone!) started asking some random guys about discotecas and bars, so they brought us to the bar region of the city. It seemed a little sketch for a while, but we had a ginormous group, busy streets, and we left them as soon as they brought us to the area of the city. Anyway, we eventually ended up at this bar...... STOP! We had pre-discoteca across the street! It took us about a million days to decide on what to get, so we all just got a shot of honey rum and some woman there took our picture and offered us free shots. Well, no one but Esteban y yo were willing to, so we didn't. Back to this one bar. We thought it was discoteca, turns out no, but we had a grand time. It was quite loud, which was undesirable and ended up meandering back to some other bar with muchos less people and a bit too much American music. It was alright, and we ended up leaving at about... 2:45. We got home with no problems, but I didn't get to bed until much later because I was talking to people.

Cue this morning... that came and went before we got up at an early hour of 2:30 pm. Buenisimo! Yeah, it was very late because the alarm clocks in our moviles (cell phones) are way too quiet. Because of this, we did almost nothing. We missed churros con chocolate with Andrea, Esteban, and Kelsey, too... We did have some rice with mushrooms (gross) and shrimp though. Our host madre really likes to make us eat a lot of food though, so we did not finish. We also did not siesta after due to our massively late start to the day. I did get most of my homework done. Maybe Katie and I can go on an adventure in Campo Grande tomorrow instead of doing that. I also talked with the parentals. Then before you know it, it's time for cena (dinner). It was also un gran tiempo (great time). We had huevos fritos (or fried eggs), and Katie doesn't like eggs. She tried really hard to eat it, but she just couldn't do it. She felt really bad and made THE silliest faces trying to choke down one more bite. My entertainment in Espana.

After dinner, we had a little time to get ready (by the way, I still can't bring myself to wear leggings by themselves). We were off once again. We wanted tapas (appetizers) and started fumbling around the city for a good place even though Esteban's host madre gave him a list. The first place had too much seafood and was really busy, so we returned to the Plaza Mayor where Lisa proceeded to ask these guys about tapas. They looked really confused before asking us if we spoke English. Turns out they were Swedish and in high school studying abroad! Que comico! They were of little help, but it's okay cuz we found a place. I wasn't hungry so tapas will be for another night.

After that we returned to the same bar as last night (the second one with no people). I add that only because tonight it was completely packed. Craziness! It was a lot more fun... and also way less fun in some ways. There was a huge asshole there that Andrea and Lisa met. These posts will probably include a lot of Andrea and Lisa meeting boys. Anyway, he took my beer, shook it up, and sprayed it all over the floor. Rude. We stayed away from him after that. But it was good. We chilled there, danced, and enjoyed ourselves before leaving at 2.

The only notable thing about the walk home was that we saw the grim. No fricken lie. I was going to have Esteban take a picture of it for me to put in the foto book I'm making Eric when it came running at us and growling! I was frightened like none other. Terrifying for realsies. So if this thing doesn't get updated in a while, you can figure that the grim caught up to me. And on that note, buenas noches

I'm eating a chocolate sponge

OUR ALARM CLOCK SUCKS! Aka, my iPod. Did you know that when you plug in an iPod to charge to a computer in a different time zone, it will change the iPod's time to said time zone? No, well now you know. Anyway, that was our predicament this morning. Everything was vale (okay) because we got up and to school on time. We also didn't miss the bus, but there were soooo many people on it. I guess Fridays are just more popular. But seriously, it was ridiculous.

We had class again. Imagine that?! Anyway, it was good. Had some more oral expression, history, and grammar. I'm thinking we're going to have a lot of grammar. Also, oral expression should actually be called speaking and vocabulary. Phwoar, are we learning some new words. Like despota... I look it up in the dictionary, and it tells me despot. Very helpful, dictionary. Turns out it's an adjective for a tyrannical person... like Hitler or Stalin. Anyway, history was good. Everything we're learning at the moment has nothing to do with our finals, so it's fun. Also, I won't have it for the next 2 weeks because Agustin won't be here. Woot! And grammar... it's grammar. Still doing that subjunctive thing. I learned about some Spanish metaphors. Good stuff. I also learned the difference between tener que + verb and necesitar + verb, but I won't bore you with those details.

After class we checked out the cafeteria which is muy cerca (very close) to our building, because we had to wait for Esteban. We only had 3 hours of class, whereas he had 4. So we chilled there. There was some ice cream buying and very bad Spanglish. We are freaking pros. Anyway, Esteban finally left class and we could return a casa. Again, success here. We got this city down... or at least our route home. So we had our lunch (lentils... They're actually good!) and no siesta when we really need it because we are festajamos-ing (going out basically) tonight.

Then we went on another adventure to buy our grammar book, and it's STILL not there. However, we looked around the store and there are so many funny books in there. It's known for languages, so there was a lot in English, too. Pictures to ensue in Facebook. So then on the return, we found this wonderful little store where everything costs about 2 euros. I got a necklace, leggings, eyeshadow, and a coin purse, because the they have euro coins here which make it impossible (another word to read in either language) to shut my wallet. I really like it there, so I'm there will be a definite return. And for now, we are waiting en casa for dinner before going out to the bar across the street from us, tapas, and la discoteka!!!