Saying Goodbye

Well graduation was yesterday and it was such a bittersweet day. We said goodbye to our professors who have been with us the entire month. Luckily, we all passed! :) That night was so sad because everyone knew that it was our last night in Valladolid. Today was even worse. My family and I spent the morning together. I gave them their gifts that I made for them and the mom started crying. I teared up a little, but the rest of my tears came that afternoon when it came time to say goodbye to my family. I have never had such a painful experience. It was so hard because I wanted to tell them how much they meant to me and how amazing my trip has been because of them, but I couldn't find the words in English OR in Spanish. So I just told them, "Tu Estas en mi corazon para siempre" which means, you are in my heart forever, and they said that I am in theirs too. I shared a few good tears with Nikki on the train and then felt a little better. I took the world's fastest train to get to Madrid and then we maneuvered the metros to find our way to our hotel. Unfortunately, we got lost AFTER we got off the confusing metros and trains. But we managed to get to our hotel safe and sound and it is beautiful. Nikky wants to get going now and this will probably be my last blog before I come home, but I'll be home soon! Much Love ahora y siempre... :)

Video of Last Sunday night...

Hey Everyone! If you copy and paste this link into a nnew webpage, you can see one of my videos from the night when Spain won the world cup! It's quite crazy... make sure your volume isn't too loud!!

Flowes for Nieves

Today I was walking home from school and decided to buy my host mom a boquet of flowers. I brought them in the door and she asked me what the flowers were for. When I explained that they were to thank her for all that she has been doing for me, she literally got giddy with excitement and gave me a hug and kept saying thank you over and over again. Now every time she walks by the table where they are sitting, she says, "Mis flores, que bonita, que bonita," It's amazing how the smallest act of kindness can go so far in someone's life. :)

Pictures!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044581&id=1290871530&l=e3082d8573

If you click on this link you can see my pictures!!!

A Much needed update...

Sorry for the lack of updates! My computer has been extremely finicky and then it just completely died. Luckily I have an amazing friend out here who has the same computer as me and she is letting me borrow her adaptor. So... long story short, my past week went from great to horrible in the period of a few days. I was having a great time... I went to Burgos with my family and visited their sister for her brithday... (This was the great part) Then I came back to school and felt completely overwhelmed and out of the loop after only missing one day. (This was the getting bad part...) So I set out to study and do my best on the test on Friday... I got 17/55 which is a 31%... (This is the BAD) part... then one of my professors stopped me on my way out of school and said that I should spend some extra time studying because she feels like I am slipping behind in school. (This is the borrible part). SO. I just had to go home and sleep and not think about it and just try to wake up refreshed and with a better heart. I woke up and decided to go to a concert with Nikky. We went, and enjoyed the first few songs, and then decided we were bored. It was in a cathedral though... so we figured it would be slightly innappropriate to just get up and leave halfway through the performance. So we stayed... and afterwards went out to a cafe/bar. We then walked around town for a while and just enjoyed the "cool" night air. School is looking up again for me though. The whole class got a 40% or lower on their test, so the teacher is letting us retake them. I had class today and it went really well. The same professor who said I needed to spend some extra time studying seemed very impressed with my responses in class today.

Now I have to tell you about yesterday!!! It was a saints day here in Spain and apparently they celebrate it with fireworks, fiestas and beer! My family told me they were taking me to their friends house to celebrate. I was excited because I had met this friend in the past and she is really nice. So we arrived at her house, and we just kind of stood around. I was confused as to why we weren't going inside... when suddenly this door opens up from under the ground and out pops Ana (the friend). I was shocked, confused, and just down right flaburgasted as to where she came from and where we were going. We all climbed into this stairway where she came from and when we got to the bottom, there was a table set and ready for us to eat! Apparently this was a cave back in the day... and they renovated it and made it into a little part of their house. It was absolutely freezing down there. The thermometer said 43 degrees! so we ate down in the cave and then came up and sat on top of the cave entrance and watched THE BIGGEST fireworks show that I have ever seen. I loved it! We were so close to the fireworks that you could hear the people talking as they lit the fireworks AND the ashes were falling into your hair as they fell from the sky. After the fireworks, we went to a different friend's house and hung out for a while... then at about 1 am we went out to the plaza to go dancing. We danced until about 3 am and then we headed home since I had to be up for school in 4 hours. Let's just say I was pretty tired today! So other than that, my family is still amazing. Although, I'm starting to miss home (especially my little brother... the coolest brother in the world!) Now it's off to siesta... finally!! Much love to you all!

The Typical Spanish Day

Alrighty... most of you have been asking me lots of questions... so here are some of the answers! My typical day consists of waking up at 7:30 am. I get and get ready and head out to have breakfast which is ALWAYS 2 pieces of toast, orange juice, and coffee. As soon as I am done eating, I meet up with a friend who lives in the same apartment complex and we walk to school. The walk is about 45 minutes but it is usually pretty nice in the mornings and we aren't too exhausted by the time we get to class. I am in class from 9-1:40 pm. By the time class is out, it is about 105 degrees outside, so I take the smelly bus home. I get home about 2:30 and when I walk in the door my mom has lunch ready and sitting on the table. We eat lunch around the television and no one really talks. I don't really like this because (as most of you know) I love to talk! :)Now... as far as food goes. Let me say it this way: since I've been here, not one day has gone by where I have NOT eaten ham. In fact, most days I have ham twice a day. It is the most popular meat in spain. Everything is "patatas con jamon" or "queso con jamon" or "melon con jamon" (Melon and ham is actually my new favorite!) They eat so much ham that at one store in Salamanca, I saw a shirt that says, "Donde esta mi cerveza, mis tapas y mi jamon??" That means, where is my beer, my tapas and my ham!? And at my school, there is a vending machine with ham flavored chips. GROSS. haha :) Anyways... after we eat lunch we clean up the table, my mom mops and dusts the house and then we all go to sleep for about 2 hours. All of the stores close in Spain from 2pm - 5pm so the workers can all go home and have lunch with their families. I love this about Spain. Family is placed at such a high priority and it is such a nice break from the hustle of life. At around 6 I usually meet up with some friends and we go out shopping, or exploring or purposefully getting lost (which is actually quite fun!) We head back home around 9:30 because dinner is at 10 pm. For dinner, I've learned that we have whatever we didn't finish at lunch, and a small meal. So a quick note to self: if you don't like what you're eating for lunch, eat it ALL at lunch so you won't have to see it again!! After dinner, I do my homework for the next day, I usually go out again with my friends to one of the plazas to hang out and then I get back around 12 am. I hang out with my family here until around 2 am and then we start going to bed around 2:30 or 3 am. I wake up again at 7:30 and the day starts all over! I love it! It is going to be really hard for me to readjust to American life when I get back. I think I might introduce my family to siestas!! Oh and one more thing most of you will be shocked to know... I ate fish today for lunch. Much love to you all!

Dancing in Plaza Mayor

There are very few words to describe how incredible last night was. SPAIN WON THE WORLD CUP and I was here to experience it all. I started my night in a local bar with Eva, Jose, Ana, Miguel and Eduardo. We watched every minute of the game, we yelled, we cheered, we chanted, we gasped and when Spain won... we screamed and hugged and high fived! It was about 10:30 pm but the party had just begun. There were people setting off fireworks everywhere! We decided to head down to Plaza Mayor. I am not exaggerating when I say that there were probably close to 6,000 people there. It was like a sea of red and yellow jumping up and down waving flags and blowing obnoxious horns. I have never seen anything like it! Once we got into the jumping crowd, we could see what turned out to be the best part of the night. Firemen. 4 firemen were on top of their truck with firehoses and they were all spraying the crowd. When the water hits you, it felt like tiny needles piercing your skin, but nonetheless, we jumped right in and danced the night away. It was incredible. 9 out of every 10 people in the crowd were drunk and there were thousands of beer bottles and trash all over the streets. I had such a great time with the group that I was in. We kept dragging the people who didn't want to get wet right next to a hose and let's just say, we were ALL drenched by the time we left... around 3 am. We walked home and I came in and went right to bed... after all I had class in the morning at 8:30. haha. So to say the least, I survived school today thanks to a cup of espresso. The temperature is finally dropping a little bit today. It has been in the hundreds for the past 3 days and today it is only about 90. It feels kind of chilly actually! Thanks for keeping up with my adventures. For those of you who keep asking, I'll tell you about the food I've been eating here very soon. Much Love!

Salamanca!

Today I went to Salamanca, Spain. There are few words to fully describe the beauty of this city. It was unfathomably beautiful. My favorite part of the visit was seeing the cathedral. It is so gigantic that you cannot look at the whole thing without turning your head a full 180 degrees. The inside of the cathedral was breathtaking. It had an organ that was probably the height of my house. Its history is so incredible and if you ever get to go to Salamanca, you MUST visit the cathedral! It was so neat being next to it. You felt so small and our professor was explaining that the incredible size of the cathedral is for that purpose. When you are inside the building, you are supposed to remember that there is something greater than what you can see here on earth. You are easily reminded that your life on earth is short-termed and that God has such a great and beautiful plan for your life. This is by far my favorite building that I have seen on my trip. What's crazy to me is that this cathedral didn't even make it on the top 10 biggest cathedrals in the world. Wow.

I've officially been here for one week! I can't believe how fast time has gone by. My friends and I were talking about how we feel like we have been living here forever. It's not so much like we feel like we have been here forever, but we feel like we know our way around and feel comfortable here. My spanish is improving. I'm at the point where I will conjugate a verb incorrectly, then incorrectly again and then correctly and my family will clap and cheer! It's so funny! I have been trying to get pictures loaded onto this blog, but the internet is extremely slow and barely works. I posted some on facebook though! For those of you who don't have a facebook... I'm working on it! I'm going to go out shopping tonight and hopefully find those postcards that I have promised you! I have yet to find a store that sells them in Valladolid. Tomorrow I'll be in Salamanca for the day. It is supposed to be the most BEAUTIFUL city in Spain, but I guess I'll have to see for myself. Enjoy your weather wherever you may be... it has been in the 100's over here with 80% humidity. So far, the only building that has air conditioning that I've been in has been the school. Even then, only the hallways have AC and you're stuck inside the classroom with 20 other people and it's just HOT! BUT. nonetheless it's all very fun! I found an opera house here that I want to go to. Hopefully that works out! Much love to you all!

It's 100 degrees here... and guys don't wear deodurant...

What more do I need to say about this? Guys here smell quite badly! I don't know why only women wear deodurant, but for some awful reason, it's true. Imagine being on a 40 minute bus ride next to a person who smells like he poured a bottle of Calvin Klein cologne on over his already fragrant B.O. haha yeah. it's awful. I also find it odd that men here do not hold doors for women! There have been many times where I will be going into a house or a cafe etc. and the guy in front of me will just let the door close. (Every time this happens, I want to tell him that he owes me a euro... but then I remember that this only happens at my house! :) For those of you who may be wondering... SPAIN WON!!! I am proud to say that I chanted right along with the bar I was in and sang, "Yo soy espana! Yo soy espana! Viva Espana! Viva Espana!" I met two of the friends of my host family's daughter and we are going out again tonight. We're going to go to the movie THEE-TERS. haha to see twilight. It should be interesting considering 3 things: 1. I have never even HELD twilight book... 2. I have never seen a twilight movie... and 3. It's going to be in Spanish! haha. I'm excited to see what Spaniards eat for popcorn! This weekend will be absolutely crazy with the final futbol game on Sunday. I need to buy a jersey!! Hasta luego!

Futbol!!!!!!!!!

As many of you know, sports has never truly been my "thing". I can watch a game, and sort of understand it, and sort of act like I'm interested... but never NEVER did I think that I would be here... wanting to get my face painted, wearing red and yellow and cheering for Spain to win their game against Germany!!! The game is at 8:30 tonight, and I will be with my host family's daughter and her boyfriend at a Pub watching the game! It is so exciting!!! The run of the bulls was also today, but unlike the other Americans (not from my group) who went to run with the bulls and got killed... I stayed inside and watched on TV. Last night, I explored the town again with one of my friends. We shopped for 5 hours, found dinner at a little sandwhich shop and discovered our new favorite bar! But no worries mom... it's an ice cream bar! It's soooo cute! It is decorated like a bar, but it is a legitamate ice cream parlor. Well... That's all for now... After all... it is siesta time! Then it's time for the big game!!!!!! LET'S GO SPAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Valladolid

Hola! Buenas dias! Valladolid is absoluitely beautiful. We took a tour of the city yesterday and learned all about the 16th century gothic style architecture that is everywhere in the city. My host family is incredible. I live with a mom, her daughter, the daughter's boyfriend and their two cats. They are all extremely helpful! (And for those of you wondering, they don't speak ANY English!) The food here is really different, but really good. Even the water tastes different. It definately took some time to adjust. I had my first siesta yesterday, and I instantly fell in love with this tradition! The sun doesn't set in this city until about 10:30 so the typical night consists of dinner, or cena in spanish, around 10 o clock and then the family stays up until about 1 am until they go to sleep. Some of the pictures that you'll see on the blog are of my school and the surrounding buildings. I bought a cell phone to use while I'm out here, but I used up all of the time with one 11 minute phone call! Turns out that calling the US is pretty expensive. I have to get going to my first day of class now, but I will try to keep you updated as much as possible. I'm slowly learning how things work around here. Funny story of the week: My friend Aly was trying to ask a man how much a bracelet cost... she should have said "Cuanto cuesta?" but she kept saying, "Cuanto queso" which means how much cheese!! So the man was extremely confused, it was histerical once we figured each other out. Much love to you all!!

P.S. I can't figure out the pictures right now, I uploaded them to facebook though if you want to see! Don't want to be late to my first day of class. It takes about 40 minutes to walk to campus. EVERYONE WALKS EVERYWHERE HERE!! Without a doubt I walked more than 8 miles yesterday as we traveled around town. Two words: SORE FEET. :) but it's definately worth it!

We're here!

Hey! After a long 11 hour flight from LAX to Germany, a 3 hour layover in Germany, a flight delay in Germany and a total of 26 hour traveling time, we are finally here! I have lots of airplane stories to tell, but I am running short on time because I am about to take the train into Madrid to go visit some castles. :) Pictures coming soon!!!!! Email me!

And we're off!

Our flight leaves tomorrow night and I'll arrive in Spain 20 hours later! Pray for a restful flight, a hassle free airport experience, and ANYTHING but a gross meal to be served on the flight!! :) Feel free to email me to say hi while I'm gone! Check back for pictures soon!!! Much Love