Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Peace, dookie

Oh hey, followers! I feel bad for going so long without writing. Was it that long or does it just seem long? I don't know but either way it's just because I'm lazy. Let me catch you all up. 

Exciting things that happened..

- Aunt Helen came to Madrid!! My giirrrrrrll from home, Ashley's aunt came and had her layover in Madrid for a few days! Me and Janie met up with her Monday night and went to this really neat place, Mercado de something or other. It was so cool! I'm gonna go back and take pictures. But to explain, it's  a modern looking building, with tall glass windows outside kind of market full of different booths of fresh food and drinks and anything you can think of! Like there's an olive booth here, a FROZEN YOGURT booth there (first time to see frozen yogurt in spain), some cheese here, the works. Tuesday we went back to the big city and had dinner with her at the cutest family owned Spanish restaurant! Me and Jane told the owner we would bring alll our new friends back there one day and then he told us he was retiring and they're turning the place into a bar. Like there aren't enough of those. But it was great, aunt Helen knows her places to go in Madrid! 

 Me and Aunt Helen!

 - I met my intercambio! Her name is Laura and she's really cool! I don't remember if I already told you about her or not, so sorry about it. She's actually from Romania but she moved to Spain like 10 years ago. She has a serious boyfriend and she's 23. She talks to me like I'm a little kid I feel like. But Jane's intercambio is friends with mine, so we are going to go out with them and they are going to take us to a place where we can dance with spaniards haha

Aunt Helen strikes again!

doesn't this salad look deliciouss?!!? its pilar's, not ours

- pilar is on a special new diet. apparently its the talk of europe. now pilar only eats what dr dukan says she can eat! strict diet. a lot of the stuff looks really good and healthy that she makes, but dont worry, she's still frying us ham so that we can get a taste for real spanish food. 

paella!

- I can't complain because we have friends here that are barely fed at all. Pilar is a good cook and she made paella last week!! It had all sorts of things in it. It's a rice dish with a certain flavor of spices but I don't know how to say them exactly. The meat in it varies. Pilar's paella has mussels, shrimp, clams, chicken, and calamari. It was reaal good. There was some onion and red pepper in it too. It's kind of a lot of work eating it though, gotta peel it and what not.


- We met up with two of our friends Amy and Nikki and went to the Reina Sofia on Saturday because it was free after 2:30! It's a huge museum of modern art and it was pretty packed. There we saw some of Dali's work and Picasso's work too! I snapped a picture of Guernica, the really famous one, even though you aren't supposed to take pictures ooops

 a portion of guernica

- We knew that Real MAdrid, Madrid's fútbol league, was playing Saturday night in Madrid and have been wanting to go to a game but had no idea about how to get tickets or any of tthat. But we decided to give it a shot and ended up going to the game against Levante, a team out of Valencia. Apparently they were ranked 15th out of 20 Spanish teams, so we won duh. It was so much fun! Just like a football stadium would be in the United States, and the fans just like at an Auburn game. It made me really excited for football season! We were bummed that Casillas wasn't playing that game. But it was so fun to go! 


Me Jane and Nikki outside the stadium

(PS my camera is kind of messed up. I had to turn the flash off when we were in a museum and I think I changed some settings and I can't get it back to normal so everyone is orange and blurry now)

- Ready for this?? So yesterday we couldn't help but notice there was a lot of moving of boxes going on for a while in the house. Boxes from the attic to downstairs and wherever. Finally we asked what was going on and Pilar mentioned that her daughter Irene and her husband Peter are moving to Sweden. How sad. But first they are living here for a month and sharing a bathroom with us! yayyy. I bet you're wondering about the title "peace, dookie". You might be surprised to know that dookie is actually Irene's dog! So dookie goes to Sweden to after March. How sad.. bye dookie. It's no longer going to be "the huskies". Just "husky". Just Neva.

- So sometimes when we go meet up with friends we go to this churreria in our neighborhood. The owners are literally the sweetest people I have met in this country, maybe even ever! Flor y Salvador are their names. They are way too nice to us. Me and Jane went in one day last week and got some coffee. They make everything better! It wasn't the best day but they cheered us up and they even loaned us an umbrella to walk home with. I want them to adopt us. Is that too much to ask? I don't know what else to say, but they definitely deserved their own little segment here.  

Sunday, February 13, 2011

segovia, the land i call my own

Ever seen The Princess Diaries? hope so, at least the first one anyways. Remember the song about Genovia? Since Genovia isn't a real country, we decided not to let the song go to waste. It now belongs to Segovia, a city about an hour and a half from Madrid. Segovia, the land I call my own. Se-go-via, Se-GOOO-vi-aaaa. We took a field trip there with our school Friday! It is known for the Roman Aqueducts and Alcázar. On the way, we stopped by the 18th century Royal Palace of la Granja. It was modeled after Versailles! niice. I jacked this picture from the internet because I didn't get a good one of the whole thing
Alcázar

Roman Aqueduct

bocadillo break - chorizo anyone??

Last week went by really fast, kind of like all of the time here has! We volunteered at the bilingual school for the first time on Wednesday! It was so fun, kind of unorganized and we weren't really sure what we were supposed to do, but the kids definitely got to practice their English (even if it was by singing their favorite Katy Perry and Guns N' Roses songs). Yesterday afternoon a group of the auburn girls went to Madrid. We walked around in Retiro Park, it's like central park in new york! but in spain. We went to dinner later on at the "Buffet" (with some japanese words under it) hahaaah. We wanted some sushi, and its not easy to find in these parts. We walked in to check out the menu and were sold when we saw the conveyor belt rollin' around the goods (just makes me think of osaka!!) 
I don't know if you can tell, but that is HAM in that sushi. leave it to spain

Then we met up with some people for Chris' 21st birthday. We barely made the train back to Alcalá! after a few minor struggles in the metro/train station.. Oh ya!  Me and Jane Anne did some more exploring in Alcalá too. We walked by the mexican restaurant that our teacher recommended, thanks carlos. We finally found the river in Alcalá! It's pretty to run along, although I saw a women aggressively pick a dog up by the leash and it was sad! gotta go- tomorrow's busy! I'm meeting with my intercambio, laura, after cine class. And then off to Madrid to hang out with ashley's aunt helen!! haha yay!!
Me and Amy!


Puerta de Alcalá in Madrid!



Monday, February 7, 2011

¡Bélgica!

Hey people! We went to Bélgica this weekend!! Thats how you say Belgium in Spanish - Bélgica! So we left real early Friday morning and got  to Brussels around before noon. We flew with Ryanair, a cheap airline that I was a little nervous about. We had heard some stories about how you get what you pay for, but besides the bumble bee color scheme inside the plane and the advertisements going off on the intercom every 5 minutes it really wasn't bad! We had some lunch and wondered why we didn't study abroad there because the food is so much better, and then walked around and saw the sights. Of course it's fitting that right when we left Spain the temperature shot up there and Belgium has one of the windiest weekends ever. 
fighting the wind!

Belgium is beautiful! Really underrated, or at least I hadn't heard much about it. They are all about the cobblestone streets. Look- we took a detour in Ireland!
Just kidding but that's how I picture Ireland looking. Irlanda in spanish! Irlanda! So we were walking around looking for this statue called Manneken Pis, it's actually of a little boy peeing but it's really famous. It's a funny story I think. Some little boy went missing and his dad said whenever I find him I'm going to make a statue of him doing whatever he's doing the second I find him, and of course he found him while he was peeing in the woods. So naturally his dad made the statue. Anyways we came across some people that worked at the US embassy and they told us we could follow them to the statue. One of the men bought a waffle from a waffle truck (like an ice cream truck in America but with waffles) and he let us all split it! BEST waffle I everrrrr had, Belgium knows how to do it for real. Here's a picture of some Belgian waffles. And manneken pis. 
YUMMM

They warned us that it was tiny and kind of a let down but we went annyways. They dress him up in all different types of attire, too! he was nakey when we saw him but here's a picture of him in judo attire.

File:Manneken Pis in judopak Brussel.jpg

Before I forget, Belgium is famous for their chocolate and lace, too. It's everywhere. Like EVERYWHERE and the chocolate really is like SO good. After we explored Brussels some more, me and Jane decided to go to Brugge for the night, it's a city about an hour away by train. It's referred to as the Venice of the  North! It has canals running through it and the buildings are all medieval, it was so cool! While we waited for the train to Brugge, me and Jane were asking this older man, who we thought worked at the train station, if we were getting on the right train. This younger guy, looking about our age  came in on the conversation and later told us that it wasn't safe to talk to random old men. We ended up sitting near him on the train and he told us he was going to Brugge because his mom lives there. Of course we pounded him with questions about what we should do in Brugge since we would have less than 24 hours there. He was really nice and offered to show us around the next day. We were very careful about no giving him any information of course we just set a random time at a random meeting place (Brugge is really small). We were kind of surprised that he showed up the next morning at our meeting spot, but after all he said he wanted to practice his english and that he's interested in other cultures. So he showed us all of the important things to see in Brugge! It was lucky we got to see it with a local, or who knows what me and Jane would have ended up doing in Brugge on our own without a guide. We saw the Belfry, a huge tower that overlooks their main square, the Market. Fun fact from Luciaan (our tour guide) - it leans 8 ft to the left! we told him that was a fun fact and we wanted more of those. He didn't understand what fun fact meant and told us everything was a fun fact and we were too nice to correct him. Belgium is also famous for their beer! I'm not much of a beer drinker, but Luciaan said I'd like the cherry beer. So we took a break from the wind and tried some Belgian beer! Not bad, but I prefer the chocolate.
 Luciaan! see, he's not sketchy!
cheers!
 Then we went to see Michelangelo's only piece outside of Italy - Madonna and Child. There it is again in white chocolate at the chocolate museum we went to! It's really shiny in chocolate, and you can get as close as you want. Also at the chocolate museum there was a demonstration and we got to try it fresh! MMMMhmmmm. 
Michelangelo's Madonna and Child

Chocolate Museum's Madonna and Child

We thought there was a lot of chocolate in Brussels, but I think Brugge takes the cake on chocolate shops. After me and Jane wanted to walk into every single one, I think Luciaan got a little annoyed and we parted ways. haha. He also showed us this beautiful field surrounded by these little white houses where monks used to live. It really was strange getting back to Brussels, this busy city, after being in the middle ages. Here's some more pictures so you can see!
 Belgian lace!

Brussels




Bruges!
 cute chocolate shop!
 the Belfry tower








Thursday, February 3, 2011

No English February

OOPS Haven't gotten around to blogging lately! Sorry, everybody. whoever's reading this. How can I explain it, my attitude about blogging? Hmm.. well I think I feel the same way about blogging as I do about cleaning my room. If you know me, you know I don't like cleaning my room. I hate it actually, rarely do it, but when I do, I'm always glad I did. That's exactly how I feel about blogging. Where to start? Well this week was really great! Maybe one of the better weeks here so far. The weather has been beautiful; of course it's still colder than I'd like, but the sun's out and the afternoons are really nice! Yesterday we went to the school where we're going to volunteer every Wednesday! It starts next week but we got to see the kiddos. They are just the cutest! I think (from what I understood from our meeting with Concha - yes, that is her name) we will be having structured conversations with the kids, asking them things like, "What's your name? What color is this?" Random questions about things they're learning to say in English. I think the age is pretty young, like 11-14 or something. Sheesh. If only we'd been learning our second language then! We learned today in Carlos' class (spanish civ and culture) that it's a requirement in the region of Madrid for schols to make kids bilingual, or something like that. LOVE Carlos' class. He so cute. AND he cancelled class once this week and once last week! Which made me like him even more, until I realized that here in Spain, they make you come back some random afternoon at a really inconvenient time and make up the class you missed... yeahh. In my conversation class we learned about this huge festival in Valencia called "Las Fallas". It happens every year the week of March 19, which is the day of Saint Joseph, as in Joseph the father of Jesus, so it also happens to be Father's Day! It's strange different countries have different Father's DayS! I just figured they were the same everywhere. But back to Las Fallas. It's this huge festival leading up to the 19th and it starts by the carpenters making huge float-like people and decorations out of leftover wood. These are the fallas and they line the streets of Valencia! Then, on the 19th I think, when it's ending, they burn everything wooden that they built and have TONS of firecrackers and more fireworks than you've ever seen. It's really fascinating.
Here's how big they are!!
And here's one on fire!

It's February now, and since February 1, me and Juanita are not allowed to speak English to each other (according to p-money). We really tried the first day, but of course we have our slip ups when no one's around. It's amazing how hard it is to do that! It takes SO much longer to get a point across, but I think it will help a lot if we actually do. She just came in our rooms and when talking about our trip to Belgium this weekend she said we had better speak spanish to each other while we're there or else it will be obvious on Monday. yikes I'm scared. Fun fact about Belgium - They speak Flemish, a mix between German and French. Of course 95% of europeans speak like 5 languages so not like it matters but I thought it was cool. We are flying into Brussels tomorrow morning and then taking a train to Bruges! It's supposedly da bomb, google it. Hopefully our taxi actually comes at 4 AM. I called and got one reserved but you never know with this country. I mean the language barrier. Well, gotta go pack! Adios!