the weir's meet the zaldivars

So it's wednesday morning and my parents got to Madrid on Sunday! Me and Jane went to meet them and walked around some, went to the Rastro (that huge Sunday market) and ate lunch around the Plaza Mayor. After pops took a little nap, we went to the Prado museum real quick (if you wait and go when it's free then you don't feel bad for only staying long enough to see the good stuff and jetting out), then headed back to the Puerta del Sol near their hotel to eat dinner. We ate at a fun tapas place called la Descubierta! It was really fun and not too expensive and the spanish food was actually good! I stayed in their hotel with them Sunday night and took a REALLY long shower Monday morning and came back to Alcalá to study for/take a midterm. Yesterday while I had class my parents went to Segovia. In the afternoon I met them here at the train station to show them around the university and took them to meet the churreria owners, Flor and Salvador, where we also met up with some other Auburn people for them to meet! THE PLOT THICKENS. We leave the churro place with a stomach ache, not from churros, no, from being nervous about our soon to be encountered awkward meeting of the parentals between ham meet and language barriers. Buuuut it was actually really fun and Pilar really went to town on the food. She made an empanada with ham, cheese, and dates (the good/normal kind of ham), some almonds that she fries and they SO good, tortilla española (like a really thick omelet with potatoes and onions etc), different kinds of dips, chorizo of course, she DID cut meat from the ham leg that's been resting in a jamonero for a few weeks (a machine that holds the leg in place by the hoof and has a blanket type thing over it keeping it "fresh") SICK. But everything was really tasty and conversation was good (pilar is the only one who didn't speak english at the table (although we learned that she understands a lot more than we thought...) So there we were with a spread of spanish dishes and not a lot to talk about. It was me, Jane, my parents, Pilar y Fede, and Irene and her hubby Peter. Peter is a baller. He talked like 75% of the time, mostly telling us things to do in Morocco. I don't care if Peter just likes to hear himself talk, he lightens the mood in this house like TONS. cool kid. Then I showed my parents my room and its just so weird that my worlds are colliding! Then we went to meet up with some friends and then to la Media Pinta until we decided to trek it back home. Now I have to pack because we are leaving for morocco straight from class!! hopefully i will have successfully ridden a camel, seen snake charmers, not gotten sick from the food/water, etc when i get back! pictures will come later from this whole week!

blog attempt TAKE 2

OK people. SO here's the thing. I almost changed the title of this blog to RIP, settled for being a nonblogger, and left a link to Jane's blog address. BUUTTTT, I did some blog stalking last night when I couldn't fall asleep and I decided to not be lazy, because it is cool to know what's going on in someone's life when it's hard to keep in touch with them. So maybe things will be different, maybe they won't, I'll give it another shot even though I kind of hate trying to sum up the mess of thoughts in my brain and fully explain this experience because I don't think I'm doing it justice in words! I'm going to give you a heads up though, I feel like these are about to get kinda deep and lengthy if I'm really going to say all thats going on! So don't say you haven't been warned. all of these WILL be too long and personal (title of my brother Will's old blog that I stumbled upon yesterday- haha thanks bro).

Maybe I'll start by trying to sum up things I have learned so far! I think I have a lot more to learn but here are a few things ..
1) don't complain - so I just recently realized how much I say "I'm so cold" or "I hate the cold" or even just ramble on about something annoying Pilar does. Today is day one with my attempt to stop complaining. Everyone is just as cold as the next person, and a good attitude can change everything (although I seriously enjoy long drawn out conversations with my friends here about weird things that host families are particular about or do differently - living with a random spanish family as part of a business deal in a sense is just enough to blog about in itself! what an experience)!
2) being indecisive is a choice, and one that most people think is annoying. I am super indecisive if you know me. But I just realized the other day that all it is is laziness. Maybe it takes some people longer to decide things and maybe an "indecisive" person just likes to map out all of the possibilities in their head before deciding something, but really seeing the decisiveness of some people makes me want to be that way. Just pick something and stick to it! Make a plan and keep it. Day one with not saying "I don't care" or "I don't know".
3) true comfort really does come only from the Lord. Things are SO different being here than back at home, where daily I am completely surrounded by people that I look up to and that know me so well and encourage me in so many ways. (It makes me SO thankful for my family, friends, and especially my roomieee Jane, who I am SO blessed to have here!!) I think being in such a drastic environment change can really show you where you find your comfort. Also, I feel like the fact that the Lord has a perfect plan for everyone has become so evident here! I can't tell you how many times me and Jane are like "where even are we!?" But I'm so sure that this is where I am supposed to be- and I really am loving it! Also, I felt really a lot of guilt a few weeks ago when I realized how much of my free time wasn't being spent with the Lord. Why not?? It's so frustrating because it's something I enjoy and something I truly want to do and I always would end up putting it off. I felt really crappy about it and then remembered that I have faith in HIS finished work, not how many times a week I open the bible (of course I realize quiet times are so important and great and DUH im not like stopping doing them). It's just really comforting to remember the extent of His love for us, especially when we are disappointed in or have been relying too much on ourselves. I was encouraged by my mom about depending on the Lord. I want to learn more about what that looks like! sorry for getting deep and boring I warned you!!
4) this one I'm still working on.. how to keep up with things? I still haven't figured this out. I'm just glad I haven't lost my passport, and PRAY that it doesn't ever happen. I have lost a couple important things, but I'm learning I think.
5) I can take a short shower!! My showers at home are like 15-20 minutes AT LEAST. Here, I time myself every time I take a shower (it reminds me of you papa - sara sanfilippo - because I think we used to time each other with random stuff and I can just see her saying "Time me!!!") My average shower is like 8 minutes but I am totally capable of doing it in like 5.30 if I'm reaally in a hurry.

Now let's talk about SPAIN! I really love SPain. I think at first I was seriously like freaked out my such a different culture, and all the ham. But I think I have really learned to appreciate this place and the people and the culture and all that! Here's some things I like about Spain.
1) I like that you can get around without a car. Thank heavens for the train that goes to Madrid. Thank goodness for the local bus that we take to class when its frrreeeezing or raining. and you can basically go anywhere in Europe for really cheap on a plane! BUT I can NOT wait to drive again! With the windows down fo sho. and some good music on (by the way my one of my speakers is busted in my car, parents, if you ever get bored and wanna take a drive over to the shop to get it fixed.???)
2) I LOVE that when you eat in a restaurant here, an hour, or two even goes by without them giving you the bill. They don't try to get you in and out in 30 minutes like in the states. They really know how to enjoy their mealtime and make it chill. They're never in a rush, which I love.
3) Arroz con leche. precious pilar made it for us the other day because she knows its our fave, ha. I wrote down the recipes and instructions!
4) New friends! I have met some really awesome people from other programs here! I'll talk more about them soon and post pictures too.
4) gummy candy. made in china, sold by chinos, affordable, amazing.
5) My school. I really love my teachers!! I want to take solo pics of them when they aren't looking so I can show yall. They actually seem like they enjoy teaching us and I really love learning Spanish its so fun!

Things I appreciate about America.
1) Business hours. Over here, nothing opens until like 10. And there's like no where to study, because the library hours aren't even good. I miss RBD!!! best library ever. I can't wait to study there next fall, with a HUGE coffee from caribou, I might even pull an all nighter just to take advantage of it being open 24 hrs.
2) It's really new. We had midterms this week and for my civ class (basically history) I had to cram like 2000 years of Spanish history into my brain. I think the year that we left off on was even earlier than the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. You wouldn't believe how many people fought over this land to settle here, its insane. Needless to say, American history is a lot easier to grasp.
3) Fountain drinks. I don't know why, but the poor Spanish people just don't know how to enjoy a good soft drink like we do in America - 32 oz (at least) filled to the brim with ice to break your teeth on. I miss that! It reminds me of going out to smiths with my young life team (I feel like we always found a way to fit a fountain drink from the gas station in on our drives out there)
There's more, duh but this is long and I think the bathroom is vacant so I better go-- last night I totally walked in on Peter!! super AWK but at least he wasn't peeing or anything he was just looking at himself in the mirror. (PS if you don't know who peter is, it's our host sister's husband- they are living here until they move to sweden in a month.. )

OH WAIT here's what happened in the past week!
- Wednesday we went to the Prado Museum with our school. It was awesome! We saw the paintings of Grecco (my fave), Velázquez, and Goya. Afterwards, me Jane and Kristina explored Madrid. We walked around and ended up in Chueca, a hip district (actually known as the gay area), where they have a lot of cool shops. We went to the Plaza Mayor and got sushi at the Mercado de San Miguel! It's da bomb.
- Friday we went to Toledo! I loved this city. Its a real pretty city known for having influence from 3 cultures living there together at the same time: christians, muslims, and jews. It's famous for marzipan too!
- So we were supposed to go on a field trip to Soria yesterday with our conversation class. Soria was described by our host brother as a miserable, FREEZING place, and he compared it to North Dakota. We were not excited, and after only getting 3 hours of sleep we woke up to head to school and Pilar told us it had snowed! No Soria trip for us, thank gosh for the snow.
- My parents are coming tomorrow!!! I am SO excited!!

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.  

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!

¡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.

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

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!

livin la vida broke-a

SHOOT I can't find my debit card anywhere which really sucks because that's the only way I can get euros. Some places accept my credit card but a lot don't and I have this nervous feeling like you get when you lose something. Typical of me. So typical. I need to watch it on my spending anyways - so maybe this will teach me? I only have 10 euros left and haven't come up with a plan of action... should I cancel the card? I'm sure the second I do, I'll find it. Oh well, you win some, ya  lose some.. Last entry was a week ago! Today was another great Wednesday here in Alcalá. I'm still pretty cold but the heater is on RIHGT now as we speak and my feet and shins are all up on it.......So I just took a little blogging break for my hot dog dinner - not bad, really. Jane Anne took the reigns on that one (good job juanita) since Pilar is at a meeting and Fede's in the den with Fede Jr. watching Real Madrid play Sevilla. I need to get into fútbol more while I'm here. All I know is that Casillas is pretty easy on the eyes.

 I don't think there's too much to say about the past week really. We just kinda took it easy and hung out in Alcalá. I could get used to this not having class on wednesdays or fridays thing. Oh but Saturday, sheesh. Some of the people with our group decided to go to a pub crawl in Madrid and see the big city by night. So we thought, eh why not? Did I mention it was called the MADRIDE pub crawl? enough said. So we get there, to this statue in the Puerta del Sol where we're supposed to meet this pub crawl master or whatever he is and come midnight he stamps our wrists, making it really official, and we were on our way. The first place we went to was really fun! Great band, played some classics, and it was so crowded that for the first time since I could remember I wasn't shivering and that right there made it worth while.  From there we just hopped around to different places and danced and met randos. Actually we met some girls that are Au Pairs and we hung out with them the rest of the night - they were so cool and all from different countries! It isn't fair that they all know English so well and they seem to be on to mastering a third language. Why can't America get the memo? It's not even that cool to be bilingual here, it's like normal. So 6 AM rolls around and our group could finally head back to Alcalá since the morning trains started to run again. Me and juanita thought-But wait! It's Sunday in Madrid! Anyone ever heard of El Rastro? It's this HUGE flea market in Madrid that takes place every Sunday morning. We were misinformed that it started at 7, so we thought, why not kill an hour and hang around for the Rastro? Well, 8:30 was more like it, it was FREEZING outside, and you'd be surprised how many places aren't open 24 hrs in Madrid. We got lucky and took cover in a cafe until the sun came up, but as you can imagine we were getting pretty delirious at this point. We got to see the Rastro, finally, and then decided we'd come back when it gets warmer. But it really is something to see! They have anything you could ever imagine! Fede even told us they have monkeys for sale - I don't know about that. We found out Fede is a chief steward for Iberia airlines! Go Fede. I can so see that, I wish he'd be my flight attendant one day. I also wish he'd hook me and juanita up with some cheap airfare. maybe we can discreetly plant that seed in his mind one day. speaking of travel I'm going to belgium next weekend! thats all for now

       Here's how crowded El Rastro gets! If you aren't the first people there..

Juanita y yo en Madrid