There and Back Again

The End...and the Beginning

2010-06-01T18:34:00.000-07:00

As I’ve been home in the U.S. for almost two weeks now, I feel it’s time to write one more blog post to wrap the wonderful, awful, crazy, awesome, terrifying, ridiculous, unfathomable experience I have just completed.

The trip home went tolerably well – I’ll spare you the boring details, but suffice it to say that after over forty hours of being awake and living through eight hours that didn’t exist on our transatlantic flight, Kristen M. and I were more than ready to see our family and our beds! And America was looking pretty sweet when we got there, that’s for sure. Though it definitely felt surreal to think that I hadn’t seen my homeland and most of the people I know for nearly five months. It still feels weird to think about it now.

I’ve been hearing that several of my friends have really been missing their European places of study now that they’re back, but I’m not really sure I share the sentiment, or at least not at this point. Sure, I’ll have my moments, like when I saw the red-roofed buildings at the end of Chocolat, when I wish I could take another walk around the Ciudadela, when a Tyrone Wells song makes me miss a good friend I met at school, or when I remember that my stash of Euro-chocolate is dwindling. Sometimes it’ll hit me and I’ll miss Spain, but it usually doesn’t hit hard. For now, I’m super content to be back in the States. I’m enjoying so many things that I used to miss in Spain that I have little time to miss Spanish things, even though many of those things are worth missing. But maybe it’s okay to be content with where you are, even though it’s not some exciting place in Europe. Maybe one thing I learned from being away for so long is how much I love home. And I daresay that’s no bad thing.

Sometimes I feel like it was all one big dream. I’ll catch myself thinking, “Did I really just spend four and a half months in Europe? How is that possible?” But then I think about all the good and bad times I had (and how much stuff I bought) and I know that it was real and that I’ll never forget it.

Okay, so before I start getting too mawkish (isn’t that a great word?), I’m gonna finish this up with a huge thank-you to all of you wonderful people who followed my blog this semester. I know it wasn’t easy, since most of the posts got pretty novel-ish, but I knew that would be the best way to really share what was going on during my adventure to Spain, since I definitely won’t remember all of those details when I’m talking to you in person (or even when I’m going through my own memories). So if you made it this far, kudos to you! I’m glad you joined me on this ride. I may be posting off and on here in the future, though the posts will be of the random-thought variety, so only the most interested (or bored) of you will be back to visit this site, but that’s okay.

So for now, I leave you with one last LOTR reference (of course!). Just remember that “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” May you choose well, and may you follow the never-ending road onward to the adventures into which it leads you!

London = A Dream Come True

2010-05-16T07:42:00.000-07:00

We arrived in London feeling pretty tired, but kept on keeping on. We found our hostel, again without a lot of trouble, and dropped our bags off. We weren’t able to check in yet since it was too early, so we decided to go right back out again and get to the free London tour we’d heard about – it was through the same company that did our Paris tour. It was a good time – we saw the Wellington Arch, a bit of the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, St. James’ Palace, the London Eye, the Parliament Building, and etc. And our tour guide was very entertaining and told us stories, like about the time a drunk Irishman broke into Buckingham Palace and made it all the way into the Queen’s bedroom, or about Guy Fawkes and the gunpowder plot (which included a very detailed description of exactly how drawing and quartering is performed :-S).

After the tour, we got some tea at a nearby coffee shop, and then went to Evensong at Westminster Abbey. It was so beautiful! The Abbey is amazing, of course, and the boy’s/men’s choir there was fantastic. It was a little difficult to stay awake during the service, even though it was only an hour long, since sitting down for such a long time made us realize how tired we really were. Nevertheless, we managed it, and were really glad that we’d had the chance to go. Once the service was over, we headed back to our hostel to check in, sleep, and make plans for the following day.

Day two was wonderful – the first stop was at Westminster Abbey again, this time to take a tour. The Abbey was definitely one of my favorite parts of London. The most awesome audio-guides known to man were included in the price, and they made the tour so much more interesting than it would have been otherwise. The Abbey was so beautiful, and we saw the graves/memorials of a ton of famous people, including Queen Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, several kings, David Livingstone, Handel, and Oliver Cromwell (Cromwell is not there anymore, however, as his body was exhumed and mutilated later on…). We also saw the graves and monuments of a bunch of my favorite writers, like Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, John Keats, the Brontë sisters, and George Eliot, among others. No big deal :-P

Next, we were planning to go to Stonehenge, so we hurried over to Victoria Station to get tickets. Unfortunately, we discovered that the tour was sold out for that afternoon. At first, we thought that this would mean we wouldn’t be able to make it to Stonehenge at all, since the rest of our days in London were booked pretty full. However, we thought about it over lunch, and decided that we could switch our Wednesday and Monday afternoon plans around and go to Stonehenge on Wednesday morning instead. Thank goodness, because we would have been very sad to miss it!

Anyway, next on the agenda was now the Globe Theatre, which is located in a really cool, older part of London that put me in mind of Dickens novels and such. The Globe itself was really neat. Our tour guide was okay, and the exhibition was really cool – it was fun to learn some more about the theatre and how it was built. I was surprised to learn that it was only finished in 1997 – I knew it was a replica, as the original burned down, but I didn’t realize the new one was built so recently. Another fun thing about the tour was seeing the stones with the names of both famous and non-famous people who have donated to the Globe. We even saw John Cleese’s and Laurence Olivier’s stones among those covering the floor in the courtyard.

After a trip to the Globe’s gift shop to get some Shakespeare-related paraphernalia, it was off to the Tate Modern art museum, right next door to the theatre. I’m never too sure about modern art, but I really enjoyed it – some of it was cool, some of it was moving, and some of it was just plain disturbing, but all of it was really interesting. We spent a couple of hours there taking everything in, and then crossed the Millennium Bridge to take a look at St. Paul’s Cathedral. We didn’t go in since it’s really expensive and since we’ve seen a ton of cathedrals at this point, but the outside was very impressive – it’s so absolutely huge and gorgeous! And we saw the staircase from Mary Poppins…I wanted to start singing “feed the birds, tuppence a bag,” but I refrained.

After the obligatory red phone booth photo and a yummy sandwich at a nearby patisserie, we dashed over to King’s Cross Station in search of Platform 9¾. Yes, we are officially nerds. We had to ask like four people how to find it because it’s pretty hidden, and they all gave us a sly little smile as though they were thinking, “Oh yes, we know. We know who you are, you silly college-age fangirls” But we finally found it tucked away on the left side of platform 9, and sure enough, there was the half-a-luggage-trolley “submerged” into the brick wall, with the “Platform 9¾” sign above it. We took a few going-to-Hogwarts photos and had a grand old time. The funny thing was that we were probably the youngest people there…so we didn’t feel bad about being nerds. Not that we would have anyway :-P

Tuesday was our day to meet up with Briana – May 11th was her last day in London with her May-sem group, and she had a free day, so we decided to take advantage of it and spend the day with her. We planned to meet her at the British Museum entrance at 9:00, but were a good fifteen minutes late (dang Spanish culture, rubbing off on me) and got there just as she was starting to leave. Thankfully, we caught her in time, but it was close! I felt so bad…but it worked out. And I was so happy to see her! 4 months is really too long to be without your best friends. Anyway, we’d decided not to go to the British Museum with Briana since she’d been there like 3 times already, so we all headed off to the Tower of London together. It was very cool! So huge and imposing. And we got a great tour from one of the Yeoman warders that live at the Tower and take care of it. He was a lot of fun and had lots of great stories to tell us about murder and intrigue and people getting their heads chopped off. After the tour we went to look at the Crown Jewels, including the world’s biggest diamond. It was intense, let me tell you. Soooo shiny…next we saw the armory and the torture chamber, which were super interesting as well.

Once we’d seen our fill of the Tower, Kristen M. went to meet a friend of hers from home, and Briana and I went to take a look the Globe, since she hadn’t seen it yet. I was proud of my skills in navigating us there successfully :-) We then went shopping at a couple of thrift stores (or “charity stores,” as they call them in England) and also in some places around the Picadilly Circus and Theatre District areas. We didn’t really find anything to buy other than some yummy chocolate, but that was okay.
Next, it was time to go to the Queen’s Theatre to see Les Miserables! Let me tell you, it was probably the most amazing theatre production I’ve ever seen in my life (except for maybe Beauty and the Beast, but I saw that when I was four and don’t remember it, so it doesn’t really count)! I absolutely loved it. The actors were incredible, and the set and effects were nothing short of genius! There was a big circle on the stage that rotated sometimes, making it appear as though the actors were walking long distances. It’s hard to explain, but gosh, did it look cool. And everyone had amazing voices – which is good, because when they said the play was a musical, they meant it. I didn’t realize that virtually every line in Les Mis is sung! It was cool, though. We were flying pretty high when we left the theatre – what an experience!

We were hoping to end the night with a pint at one of the pubs, but unfortunately we forgot that pubs close at 11:30 instead of about 3:00 in the morning like in Spain (weird, right?) so we had to content ourselves with some fish and chips. A hardship, I know. Briana headed back to her hotel (I definitely didn’t want to say goodbye) and we went to our hostel, where we ate our fish and chips as a second dinner and went to bed.

Wednesday was our last full day in London. We got up early to get to our bus for Stonehenge, tickets at the ready. After about an hour-and-a-half ride through the English countryside (which looked oddly like Minnesota), we were there. It was impressive, and definitely worth the trip! Though I have to make the quintessential “I thought it would be bigger” comment. But no matter. I took about a million pictures of it and had lots of fun listening to the (again included!) audio-guide to learn about the history of the place. The surrounding area was very striking as well; lots of large, open, rolling fields, some vibrantly yellow mustard crops, and some cute sheep. It was quite a good time, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen like, every major European landmark now, so I’m feeling pretty good about myself.

Upon returning to London, it was time to go to the British Museum. We didn’t have tons of time there, but it was cool as museums go. And I got to see some Anglo-Saxon relics and some artifacts from the Sutton Hoo ship burial! That was exciting. Seriously, this trip gratified my nerdy English-major-ness in so many ways. After the museum, we made a trip over to Abbey Road Studios, because making an homage to the Beatles is just what you do when you go to London. It took us a couple of jaunts up and down the road to find it, but we finally saw the white wall full of signatures and song lyrics and knew we had arrived. We added our own names to the wall, and then a guy sitting by the famous crosswalk said he’d take a picture of us walking across the road if we’d take one of him. Unfortunately, we were only two instead of four so it isn’t truly like the Beatles’ picture, but it was still fun.

By this time, it was getting late and we had another play to get to, so we rushed over to the Globe Theatre once again. Yes, that’s right. I saw A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In the Globe Theatre. Did I mention that this trip was like English-major heaven? Because it was. The play was so much fun! Definitely the coolest Shakespearean experience (wow…that’s a mouthful) I’ve had thus far. At first I was disappointed that the actors weren’t decked out in full Renaissance regalia…I wasn’t in the mood for any of this “let’s reinterpret Shakespeare with 1920’s costuming” nonsense. But it worked well for the play, and they did a great job with it, so I got over it. It’s weird, though – I’ve seen a few live Shakespeare productions at this point in my life, but every single one of them has used 1800’s or early 1900’s costumes instead of Shakespeare-era clothing…weird. Someday I’ll see one with Renaissance costumes. Perchance.

Anyway, the play was a hoot – at the Globe, since a fair portion of the audience (the groundlings, as they are called) is up close and personal in the stage and since the actors can see every single face in the theatre, they interact with the crowd a lot, which is always hilarious. For example, an actor would pull someone up onto the stage with them, or an actress would touch a male audience member in a flirtatious manner. So funny! And the actors were all amazing, and really drew you into the story. Bottom stole the show with his hilariousness, and Lysander was a total cutie. And Puck was a vampy, jazz-age gal with a cabaret-type outfit on. Definitely a new interpretation there! Also, the LED-wings that the fairies had were a nice touch :-P

The next day was our last day in London – we finished it off with a trip to Trafalgar Square to get pics by one of the lions, and the nearby National Gallery. So we got our historical art fix as well as our modern one. There were lots of cool things to see there, and we had time to see the majority of the paintings. After that, we went to find Harrod’s, since we’d heard that the über-expensive merchandise was worth a look. It took us a bit to find it, but find it we did. What a place! I could hardly believe the extravagance. Floors and floors of expensive perfume and designer clothing and posh furniture and everything else under the sun. They even have a pet store! Among the other amazing things we saw were a £95,000 necklace and a bride with a huge rock on her hand trying on a beautiful wedding dress. After a while of feeling very poor, we went on a walk through the very lovely Hyde Park to get back to our hostel to grab our bags and get going.

We had planned on taking the 3:05 bus to the airport, but there were severe delays on the very line that would have gotten us to Liverpool station the fastest. After inching slowly along on the Central line for a while, we decided it would be faster to take a roundabout way, so we got off and figured out an alternative route. We finally got to the station, when it was nearly time for the 4:35 bus to leave, and after a lot of frantic running about and searching, we finally found the bus, which, thankfully, was late and so we were able to catch it. I had to buy another ticket since I couldn’t find my return-trip ticket (which I have since found during my clean-out session in my room…typical.), and Kristen M. and I had just enough pounds between the two of us to get me a new one. So we made it on the bus – unfortunately, it was now rush hour, so it took the bus almost an hour and a half to get to the airport instead of 55 minutes, meaning that Kristen M. now had approximately half an hour to catch her plane to Rome. We were both getting anxious – I wasn’t so worried that I wouldn’t catch my plane since my gate didn’t close until 6:30, but I was worried that my flight would be cancelled or something due to ash.

Anyway, after the bus finally got there, Kristen M. and I said a quick goodbye and she made a break for it – she texted me later to say that she had made it just fine, so thank goodness for that – while I got the bag and hurried off to check in to my own flight. It was to be my first experience flying alone. I waited in line at a RyanAir counter only to find out that my check-in was at the other counter, the one with no line. Of course. This always seems to happen, somehow. Anyway, check-in and security went pretty quickly, and I made it with lots of time to spare. Turns out, I had a lot more time than I thought I would – my plane was over two hours late – due to traffic, not to ash, as it happened. I was still worried, though – this would mean that I’d have less than an hour to catch my bus to Pamplona instead of the original three. I was getting unbearably antsy as I waited for the plane to come, but it finally did, and I was off to Spain once again. When we landed, I prepared myself to dash. Customs and baggage claim went blessedly fast, but I found out at the information desk that I needed to go to Terminal 4 for my bus. I was currently in Terminal 1. The lady advised me to take a taxi, since it was far away. “You have very little time,” she told me. Boy, was I ever aware of it.

So I ran outside and got into a taxi, quickly telling the driver in Spanish where I needed to go, somehow getting it out in spite of the fact that my mouth was dry because I was so nervous that I’d miss my bus and be stuck in the airport all night. He zoomed me on over to the terminal (I couldn’t believe how far away it was…thank God I didn’t try to walk there) and after paying a steep 22-euro fare (too scared to care at that point…), he told me where I needed to go to get to the bus platform, and I literally made a run for it. After asking at another info desk to figure out where the right door was, I ran again (keep in mind that I had a large backpack and a heavy duffel bag hanging off of me at this point…let’s hear it for adrenalin!), and made it to the platform with fifteen minutes to spare. Sweet relief! So that crisis was averted. It definitely took me some time to calm down, but once I was on the bus, I was basically home free. So after yet another night of travel, I made it safely back to Pamplona. I was pretty proud of my ability to make it from London to Pamplona by myself without getting stuck anywhere! Though I’m sure that God was helping me out through all of it, so I can’t really take any of the credit.

And here I am, with fewer than five days left in Pamplona! I can hardly believe it. I plan to spend these next days relaxing and preparing myself to go home, both materially and mentally. A few more goodbyes to say, a few more places to visit one last time, a few more euros to get rid of (that last will not be a hardship…:-P), and I’m off to the States once again! I’ll be sad to go, but I’m ready to be home, as I have probably already told you. I’ll probably write one more blog post, but for now, know that I’m thinking of you, and I’ll see you soon!

In the Land of Eire...Or However You Spell That

2010-05-16T07:38:00.000-07:00

Well, I am officially done as a University of Navarra student! All four finals are accounted for, and I’m hoping that they went reasonably well…I guess we’ll see. It’s still a bit hard to believe, but it feels great to be finished, I must say.

I have also completed my final side trip – to Galway, Ireland and London, England with Kristen M. – and it was absolutely wonderful! I’m probably going to have to divide this post up, though, because I’m afraid it’s going to get long again…what else is new, eh? Anyway, I’m excited to revisit the memories I have of the trip – I knew I’d love the UK, and I was only too right :-).

The trip started off very smoothly and comfortably – we took a bus to Santander on the 5th, the town from which our plane would be leaving the next morning. It was nice to have a 3-hour bus ride instead of the customary 5-hour one to Madrid, and the scenery was amazing – we even got a peek at the Atlantic coast! Once in Santander, we had a very easy time finding our hostel – definitely the fastest hostel search yet. And the hostel was more like a hotel; we had our own room and bathroom, and even our own TV! Needless to say, we were feeling quite proud of our hostel-booking skills. We had thought about going out to explore Santander a little, but it was pretty late in the evening by the time we got there, so we opted to hang out in our comfy room and rest up for the next leg of our journey.

The next morning, we caught the bus to the airport and checked in with about two hours to spare. We hung out in the very tiny airport until it was time for our plane to leave. Thankfully, the menacing ash cloud that’s been undulating over Europe for the past three weeks didn’t affect our flight to Dublin at all, and we were able to leave on time with no problems. And pretty much as soon as we got off the plane, I knew that I liked Ireland. And it was so weird to hear English all around me…for a while, it was information overload, because, although I understand Spanish quite well now, I’m not used to being able to fully understand every word I hear/see. But let me tell you, it was music to my ears!

Once in Dublin, we took our (1 euro!!) bus to Galway, and got to see a bit of the Irish countryside on the way. Pretty soon, we were at the Galway bus station, where Anne was waiting for us. It was so good to see her! I loved being able to see a friend from home, other than the ones who are with me in Spain. After hugs and introductions (Kristen M. and Anne hadn’t met before we visited), Anne asked us if we were hungry, which we definitely were. She took us to a restaurant for some dinner, where we had some delicious tomato-basil soup. It was weird but refreshing to eat dinner at a normal hour instead of after 10:00 at night. And the little place we ate at was great – think of your idea of a typical Irish pub, and that’s pretty much what the place was like. Loved it!

After dinner, Anne showed us around Galway a little bit – even after just a short time in the town, I already felt at home. Something about the place just seemed so welcoming and familiar, and I loved the picturesque streets, the pretty river, and the colorful houses. Speaking of houses, it was so great to see real houses again instead of only apartments and duplexes! After a grocery run, we trekked to Anne’s apartment, located in the student living community. We got settled in for the night, and watched some TV, which was of course in English – so wonderful!

The next day, we got up late and then went out to explore the town and do some shopping (well, more looking than shopping, really, but just as fun). Anne showed us her favorite stores, and they were very cool indeed. I liked the used bookstore the most – it’s been quite some time since I’ve been able to browse for a while in a bookstore, and it was great fun. I wanted to buy a book, but I refrained since I already have waaaay more books then I came with…we did convince Anne to get a gorgeous old edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare, however :-) Later on, we got to see the river again and more cool houses, including one with a thatched roof.

That evening, Anne and Kristen’s friend Nick and several of their friends who also studied in Galway took us to a bona-fide Irish pub. It was such a great time! Anne had us try Bulmer’s pear cider, which is one of her favorite drinks in Ireland, and it was very good. And we chatted (or shouted over the (American!!) music, more like) and danced and took in the overall atmosphere. After the pub, we stopped at a pizza place for a huge slice of very yummy pizza, and then it was home to bed. It was definitely one of my best going-out nights in Europe!

The next day, we woke up late once again, and then went to the very cool market that they have every weekend in Galway. I think I liked it the best of all the markets I’ve seen so far. It had a lot to see, but it wasn’t ridiculously big, and everything there was interesting. We got very delicious doughnuts and some farm-pressed apple juice, and I bought a handmade wooden Celtic cross necklace from a nice French lady who’s been living in Galway for a long time.

After the market, we took the long way back to Anne’s apartment, and we saw more of the river, the gorgeous bay, and some extremely fancy houses. I took a great deal of lovely pictures :-) Once we were back at Anne’s apartment, we all (Anne, Nick, Alex, Alex’s friend Erin, and us) hung out until it was time to go into town – we were leaving on a 1:00 bus to Dublin that night, since our plane to London left very early in the morning and it was easier to just go straight to the airport instead of getting a hostel and all that. Anyway, Anne and Nick took us into town, where Anne bought Kristen and I a half-pint of Guinness to share, as we had yet to try it. They had been telling us stories about how intense Guinness is and how most people don’t like it at first, but to my surprise, I actually thought it was pretty good. I doubt I could handle a whole pint of it, but still. I felt kind of BA about it.

Pretty soon, it was time to say goodbye to Anne, Nick, and Galway. I was sad to leave, since I loved the town so much and because it was difficult to say goodbye to Anne again, but it wasn’t so bad since I knew I’ll be seeing her again very soon. After a quick bus ride, we were back at the Dublin airport. I was feeling surprisingly good after having traveled through the night – maybe my body’s getting used to it, as that was night number five or so of night travel this semester. Anyway, our plane left as scheduled once again, and we were in London!

Things My Travels Have Taught Me

2010-04-30T06:12:00.000-07:00

So, it seems that you can’t globe-trot over three countries (soon to be five, once the semester ends!) without learning some things. Here are a few examples…

1. If you want to save money, you will probably have to travel during the night. Possibly multiple times.

2. Spain trains and France trains are pretty nice. Italy trains…not so much.

3. There are a LOT of skeezy people in this world.

4. If you are an American girl traveling in Europe, you definitely will get whistled at, called beautiful, or otherwise pseudo-accosted by random men, no matter how ugly you happen to look at that moment.

5. I can fit everything I need for approximately 10 days (minus food) into my backpack and purse. WIN.

6. Not showering for over 24 hours will, in fact, not kill you.

7. Bring Kleenex everywhere, because two out of three bathrooms will not have toilet paper in them.

8. On that note – if a bathroom is clean and has toilet paper, soap, hot water, and some way or other to dry your hands, you have clearly died and gone to heaven. One or more of these things is always missing. In fact, if there even IS a bathroom, you better count yourself lucky. Bonus points if you don’t have to pay for it. Let’s just say that I’ve gotten good at holding it/taking advantage of my opportunities when they arise.

9. RyanAir’s strict weight and space limits can make a person extremely creative. Wearing three shirts, anyone?

10. Europeans reeeally love ceilings with ridiculously elaborate paintings all over them. REALLY love them.

11. No matter how much you plan ahead, there will always be desperate moments when you have no idea what the crap you’re doing and manage to get through by the very skin of your teeth.

12. When all hope is lost, McDonald’s will always come through for you. Always. Judge if you must; McDonald’s has earned my love forever.

13. Also, McDonald’s is way fancier in Europe, and has different things in every country. Toblerone McFlurries in Spain (America has seriously got to get in on this), delicious bakery-worthy pastries in France, and the McToast and Kiwi on a Stick in Italy (what??).

14. In a pinch, Italian has enough cognates to be almost understandable, if you speak Spanish. Thank goodness.

15. How to navigate the metro. Seriously – if you come to Paris with me, I could probably get us around quite successfully.

16. You will see all sorts of great pieces of art and culture, but you will probably have no idea what they are. Take advantage of every informative plaque that you can, because they are mighty few and far between. And if you have the means (I currently do not), invest in an audioguide whenever possible. Worth it! It gets really boring after a while to walk around and say “Huh…no idea what that is, but it sure is pretty.”

17. It is entirely possible to get tired of seeing great works of art, castles, and cathedrals. Am I a snob or what?

18. Take a mid-day break. Don’t believe me? Do without one and then see how long you can go without ripping someone’s head off or becoming nothing more than a numb pair of legs and uncaring eyes.

19. Don’t try to see everything in one day. Take a chill pill! You’ll enjoy it more if you have time to linger and really take everything in. Otherwise, you get filled up really fast, and the excess sight-seeing and historical information just spills right over the top, never to be seen again.

20. You really don’t have to take pictures of every little thing. For one thing, you’ll get tired of it quickly, and then when you see something truly amazing, you won’t feel like snapping any photos of it.

21. The pictures you took of that random building or this random piece of art meant something to you at the time, but no one else will care or understand. And even you will probably look at your photos later and think, “Why the heck did I take a picture of that? I don’t even know what it is.” So unless you really have the desire for a picture to remember something by forever, you might as well not bother.

22. When you walk by someone in a big city, you never know what language will come out of their mouth.

23. It’s standard to hear 5 or more languages spoken throughout the course of a day.

24. No matter where you go, there will ALWAYS be a group of Asian tourists. Probably lots of them. Those peeps are hardcore about their traveling!

25. Every country has its own unique feel, and it’s not always what you would have expected it to feel like.

26. People from a certain country have their own unique look – I feel like I’m getting to the place where I could make a guess at where someone is from, just by looking at them.

27. You have to learn to let things go. Sometimes you have to miss something for sake of time or money, and sometimes you have to shell out more than you were planning on, and sometimes things will get messy and take way longer than you think they will. But you just have to go with it and hope that things will turn out better next time. Because, inevitably, they will.

And the most important…

28. God loves me. A whole lot. And He’ll never, ever let me down or stop guiding and protecting me! There have been uncountable moments when I’ve succeeded with God’s help alone.

There probably are/will be more than this, but this is what I remember for now. Honestly, I think I’ve learned more outside of class than in it!

The End Is Near

2010-04-25T11:19:00.000-07:00

Here I am in the Ciudadela! I found a good spot where I can see a good portion of the park and a mountain, so I’m happy. And there’s a group of dudes near me who I thought were playing fútbol, but who are actually playing American football! I could hardly believe my eyes. Anyway, it’s a beautiful day, and I FINALLY finished my newspaper article project, so now I have some free time, and it was high time I took advantage of the wonderful weather! I haven’t written in quite a while again…mostly because I’ve been trying to focus on getting my last projects done for school (when I’m not procrastinating…). But now they’re done! My only responsibility for the rest of my time here is to study for finals. Which are pretty darn scary, but it feels good to be mostly through with school.

These last two weeks have consisted of a LOT of sitting at my desk and going stir-crazy in my room, so it’s so nice to finally be doing something different! My host mom has probably been thinking, “Why doesn’t she get out?? I’m getting tired of her being underfoot.”

However, it hasn’t been all drudgery – I’ve gotten to do some pretty fun things! Let’s see…I made it back to Taconera again, which was even prettier with the gorgeous new flowers in every color. And I’ve gotten to go to a couple of parties, which were lots of fun. They were both birthday parties, incidentally, and both for people I didn’t really know very well; they were friends of friends – I was invited by a couple of friends that knew the ones having the parties, and got to meet a few more cool people, so it’s all good :-) The first was for the roommates of a friend of Lise’s and mine named Basilio. He’s from Taiwan, and a lot of the other Taiwanese students were there as well. Love those kids! Totally some of the nicest, friendliest people I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet. After the party wound down, we all headed to Bar Castillo, which does in fact look like a castle, with stone walls and a bunch of swords and Scottish shields inside. Kinda cool! The other party was last night, at the piso of a friend of Megan’s that I met recently. It was a lot of fun! We got all dressed up, which is always a good time, and we met lots of fun people, including a funny Spanish guy with an Antonio Banderas-esque accent who was a bit older than your usual party-goer, and a hilarious Irish guy who had the most awesome accent ever, which made him even funnier!

Before you think I’ve been partying all the time, my other main activity lately has been going to Bible study. Finally! Megan had told me about it before, and I wish I could have gone for a bigger part of the semester, but I’ve had dance class at the same time that Bible study meets, up till now, so I haven’t been able to. So it goes, I guess. Anyway, I’ve loved having the chance to go, even if just for a little while! It’s such an awesome group of people, and I felt comfortable with them right away. The brothers-and-sisters-in-Christ thing will do that for you, I daresay. The group is mostly students – a mixture of American and Spanish ones, and a few older members. It’s been so nice to have such great fellowship and a little spiritual food to chew on! God continues to bless me. I’m sad that I still seem to have an uncanny knack for finding a group of awesome Christian friends when it’s time to move on to the next place, but maybe someday I’ll get it figured out. And at least I got to know them for a little while!

Yesterday, we (the Bible study group) had an American-style barbecue at Dom’s (the leader) house. It was a blast! It was nice to be at not-a-piso, where there was actually a yard! We ate great food, played some games, sat and talked, and played with Dom’s adorable bilingual children (his wife is Spanish)! Loved it. I think my favorite part was playing with the kids – I honestly don’t remember having interacted with children since Christmas, before yesterday. I think I forgot how much I’d missed it! College students generally don’t see a lot of kids, that’s for sure – even when they’re not 4,000 miles away.

I think those are the main points from the last two weeks. The rest of the stuff is boring and I’m sure you don’t care to know :-P I have found myself in a new state of mind, though – with only three weeks before I’m home in the States again (which still seems so crazy), I feel like I’m starting to mentally prepare myself to go. I’m working on finishing up all those little things I’ve been meaning to do all semester, finishing up my last projects for my classes, and trying to imagine what it will be like to be back home. I’m failing at the latter – I mean, I can picture it, and I’m looking forward to so many things, but I have a feeling that the transition is going to be harder than I think it is. So many things that were once familiar are going to take some getting used to again. And I know I’ve changed, but I don’t think I’ll realize to what extent or in exactly what ways I’ve done so until I get home and back into normal life again. So I’ll have to ask you to bear with me until I get it all sorted out again :-) And it’ll definitely be bittersweet to leave – I know already that I’m going to miss Spain so much and it’s going to be very hard to leave, but I also know that I miss all of you back home quite desperately, and I can’t wait to see everyone again and share my stories with you!

I’m sure I’ll have a few more blog posts, as I have one more trip left (to Galway, Ireland and London, England!!! I’m more excited for this one than any other so far, I think, and there will be lots to share with you) and a few more days to chill in Pamplona before I head home, so don’t go away yet! The journey’s not quite over. But I’m so excited to see all of your beautiful faces in three weeks :-)

See you very soon!

Part V: V is for Venice!

2010-04-18T07:18:00.000-07:00

The last leg of our journey had finally arrived. It was amazing how many Italian trains we’d seen the inside of at this point. We got to the Venice train station at 5:30 in the morning – exhausted, freezing cold, and in dire need of showers. We waited in the lobby until 6:00, when a café in the station opened. We went in to warm up and have a little breakfast (of things we had packed, of course…we needed to eat stuff up before flying back home), and make our plan of attack. After checking our big luggage into the drop-off place, it was off to explore the main island of Venice! Which is apparently where all the action is…there’s nothing of interest on the mainland, as we found out later. Anyway, even though we were extremely exhausted, it was still fun to see the canals-for-streets and watch people getting around on vaporettos and water-taxis. We took a look at the Rialto Bridge and the cool-looking houses, and pondered what on Earth ever possessed Italians to build a city on 117 tiny islands in the Adriatic Sea. I guess we’ll never know…

We also took a look at some gondolas! We didn’t ride one, though, because we weren’t willing to shell out the bucks for something that would probably be really awkward anyway. Gondolas seem to be the realm of cute coupley-ness, which we most certainly didn’t qualify for.

After doing a good deal of entertaining shopping for glass jewelry, it was time to head to the hotel. It had been the longest morning EVER, but 2:00 had to come sometime. And boy, were we ready for it. After crossing over to the mainland on yet another train, we found the bus we needed and got on. We quickly found out that the bus had a lot more stops than we originally thought, and also that our hotel was apparently way out in the boonies, so much so that it didn’t really feel like Venice anymore. And thank goodness that there were two nice Italian ladies on the bus to help us (they didn’t speak English, but with our knowledge of Spanish, the very few Italian words we collectively know, and some hand gestures, we figured it out), because we never would have found the hotel without them – poor European signage strikes again. But we made it, nonetheless. The check-in lady also did not speak English, but since we were mostly talking numbers, cognates came to our rescue again. After getting our money figured out, we headed up to our room.

The hotel was quite nice – the first legit hotel I’ve stayed in since arriving in Madrid, I think, and when it’s at a hostel price, how can you go wrong? We had our own little room and bathroom, decorated in a pretty antique style. This was somewhat lost on us, however, as all we wanted to do was sleep. Which we promptly did. For fourteen hours. It was glorious! We went to sleep at 3:00, fully intending to get up at 6:00, but didn’t wake up to the alarm and slept until 9:00 p.m.! We stayed awake for three hours to re-pack once again and get everything in order for leaving in the morning, and went back to bed at 12:00, sleeping until it was time to get up, take wooonderful showers (finally!!) and then get to the airport to fly back to Spain.

We were almost home! We couldn’t wait. Unfortunately, however, we had to do so for longer than we were expecting. When we got to Barcelona, we had to hurry to catch the last bus of the night back to Pamplona. After going to the wrong station and then scrambling to find the bus company’s office, we arrived there only to find out that every bus back to Pamplona that night was crammed full. And we hadn’t bought tickets beforehand, since we didn’t know for sure when we would land and what bus exactly we would be able to take. Perfect. After feeling desperate for a while and hoping in vain that the waiting list would come through for us, we ended up buying tickets for the 7:30 bus the next morning and making plans to wait out the night. Megan and I were ready to hole up in the station and take turns sleeping through the night since we didn’t want to pay for yet another hostel, but Lauren really wanted to try to find a room. The lady at the bus station gave us the name of a hostel close by, and we figured we might as well go check it out. This turned out to be a good decision – in any case, I could totally feel God’s guiding hand in the whole experience. He’s working overtime with us this semester, let me tell you! And I’m so very grateful for it. When we got to the hostel and buzzed in, this nice older lady came down to talk to us – I can’t explain it, but I got this weird feeling like she knew we were coming! Kinda cool. She was super nice when we told her that we had nowhere to sleep for the night, and told us that she had a triple for us for 20 euro apiece, which is a great price on such short notice. Especially since we overheard other people who checked in who had to pay 35 euro for a room. So we were very blessed! I ended up being quite glad that we hadn’t opted to stay in the station – a full night’s sleep was so needed at that point.

The next morning, we got up early and made SURE our butts were on that 7:30 bus. We made it with no trouble (we could see the station from our hostel window) and were finally, finally on our way home to Pamplona. And one long bus ride later, we were there! I’ve never been so happy to see the inside of that bus station.

So after a long, amazing adventure, we were finally back! A little more tired, a little wiser, and a lot poorer, we were back among familiar things again. The trip had its difficulties, but it also had some wonderful moments! There are so many things that I know I’ll never forget.

Part IV: Pisa and Cinque Terre – A Few Hours in Paradise

2010-04-18T05:38:00.000-07:00

Once again, we got up early to catch our next connection, an hour-long train ride to Pisa. This was a quick stop, as the only thing we cared about seeing here was the Leaning Tower, of course. We weren’t sure where to go and the map at the train station was somewhat misleading, but we followed the signs and made it there just fine. The tower was fantastic! We loved it. It’s actually smaller than you might think it would be (is that the way everything is here? I wonder sometimes), but so pretty! The cathedral behind it was gorgeous as well, but we were too distracted by the Tower to notice. We had a grand old time taking funny pictures of ourselves “holding up” the Tower, and other such things. Once we’d had our fill of that, it was time to walk back to the station, grab some lunch, and get onto our next train, heading for Cinque Terre. In all, we spent a grand total of about two hours in Pisa. Definitely my fastest city-visit yet!

The ride to Cinque Terre was a series of long tunnels and ear-popping, but overall not too bad. And when the gaps in the tunnels started giving me split-second views of rocky shore and turquoise water, I wanted to start jumping up and down or shrieking or some equally un-Kristen-like display of excitement. Somehow I managed to restrain myself, but the sea/ocean never fails to make me ecstatic!

I feel like I’ve explained what Cinque Terre is a million times, but I don’t remember if I did so on here or not yet. So if I have, just skip ahead. Anyway, it’s a group of five smallish towns on the western coast of Italy, and you can hike between them and such. The town we visited was called Levanto, and it was wonderful! It was so nice to be in a place that didn’t have jillions of people everywhere, forcing one to shove through the crowd to get anywhere. For some reason, it had a similar feeling for me as being in Joliet, Montana. If Joliet were on the Mediterranean Sea. With exotic-looking houses. The atmosphere was just very relaxing, and there was so much natural beauty everywhere! I feel like we don’t always get a lot of that here.
Once we got off the train, the first thing we did was find the beach! We then proceeded to change into our bikinis (Yes, you heard me right. I have now been more exposed in public than I have ever been O.o) and stayed on the beach for the rest of the afternoon! We soaked in the sun (I didn’t get very tan, though, because I covered myself copiously in the rather expensive sunscreen I had thankfully bought in Florence – being sunburned that night would’ve been unimaginably awful, and you’ll soon see why), got covered by rocky sand, waded in the freezing yet refreshing water, and took in the general splendor as the afternoon grew slowly. Megan introduced me to the wonderfulness that is the music of Tyrone Wells, and we all watched the antics of the most adorable little Italian boy ever, who was hanging out nearby us with his equally adorable family. Later on, Megan and I walked down the beach a bit and through a couple of the (freezing!) tunnels down the road. The scenery was AMAZING – definitely high on my top-ten list of Beautiful Places Kristen Has Seen. Lots of rocky hills with pretty houses on them, and water that was actually blue – not just reflecting the sun so that it looks blue; no, it was really and truly blue! I’ve never seen anything like it. And while Megan and I watched the water, we saw some animals jumping around a ways off, and there was something moving around in the water quite close to us! It was still too far to see what it was, and the thing refused to jump out and show itself, but we decided it was a whale. We wanted it to be, at least. Does the Mediterranean Sea have whales in it? I don’t know, but it was cool. And gosh, I can’t say enough about how gorgeous the place was. I would so love to go back someday!

After a few gorgeous hours on the Levanto shore, sunset had arrived and it was time to head back to the train station, as our train to Venice was leaving at 8:30 p.m. We stopped to pick up some sustenance at a grocery store on the way back, since we knew that we had a very long night ahead of us. To save money once again, we decided not to stay the night in Cinque Terre and instead go straight on to Venice that night. We knew it would be rough, but again, you just have to make the best of it sometimes. It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if we could have taken a direct train, but unfortunately, Levanto is small enough that the guy at the ticket office gave us a funny look when we told him we wanted tickets for Venice. We explained to him that we knew it wasn’t direct, but we didn’t quite realize what this would mean at the time. Our first connection was from Levanto to Parma, where we arrived at a bit after 11:00. Next up was Parma to Bologna.

By then it was about 1:00. Unfortunately, we had to wait until 3:00 for our final connection to Venice, which was exceedingly unpleasant. Thankfully, there was an indoor waiting-room (which the Parma station hadn’t had, and neither had a bathroom that didn’t cost money to use – how is this not illegal?? I miss that about the States – here, you can’t always pee for free!), though we were still very cold because we had that after-nap feeling of being deeply chilled even though the weather was only a bit brisk. And there were very few people in the room that weren’t skeezy-looking men, which was quite unnerving. But we stuck together and were okay. After two very long hours, it was finally time for our train to leave. We found our compartment, which had some weird old lady in it who wouldn’t take her feet off of one of the seats we were supposed to have (thankfully, one of the men in our compartment left and then there was enough room), and which was very dark and stuffy. It was approximately 2 hours until we would arrive in Venice, so we settled in and tried to sleep a little. We had moderate success, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
At around 5:15, I woke up, used the nasty train bathroom because I didn’t know how long it would be until I’d find another one (at this point, it had been about 48 hours since we’d seen a bathroom with toilet paper in it…thank goodness for Kleenex. What I would have given for a clean bathroom with toilet paper and soap…), got my stuff together, and got ready to get off. We waited until the train station that was on the main island so that we would only have to pay for one transport to the mainland instead of two.

And so, after a long, difficult night, we were finally there! Even though the ride had been unpleasant, however, we just had to remind ourselves that it had meant we could spend half the day in Cinque Terre, and we knew that it had all been worth it.
Final chapter – Venice!

Part III: Florence (The Halfway Point)

2010-04-14T16:42:00.000-07:00

We left on a midmorning train for Florence on Easter Monday. The ride was very pleasant, with beautiful, mountainous Tuscan scenery to watch the whole time, and a six-person compartment that put us in mind of the Hogwarts Express.

The train stopped at a different station than the one we had directions for, since we took a later train than we had originally planned on, and it took us to the station on the outskirts instead of the one in the center of Florence. Thankfully, Megan had met a nice man on the train and we happened to run into him as we wandered the station, trying to figure out where to go next. Conveniently, he was going the same direction we were, so he said we could follow him and he’d let us know where to get off. Thank the Lord for good Samaritans! After the bumpiest bus ride of my life, we arrived at the other station, and were now in the town center. From there, it took a little bit to find our hostel, as the streets are very poorly marked in Florence (what else is new, right?). By the time we got settled into our room, we were all getting a bit frustrated because we’d been hoping to head to Il Duomo that day but were quickly realizing that there wouldn’t be time since it closes in the early evening. So we made a change of plans – Lauren and I were feeling hungry so we went to find a place to split a pizza and a focaccia sandwich (which turned out to be delicious!) and Megan wasn’t feeling like lunch just then, so she went to scope things out and check on opening and closing times of some of the places we wanted to see.

After lunch, we met up again and walked around a bit. We saw the famous Old Bridge (really cool-looking! It’s the only bridge I’ve seen with houses built on it), the fake David, and the front of the Uffizi art gallery. And then we crossed the bridge and had the best gelato of our lives at a great little shop that a couple of Megan’s friends who have studied in Florence told her about. I’ve never met them, but I’m grateful to them, all the same! After that we made a stop at the grocery store to buy some fresh pasta and pesto sauce in hopes of cooking it in the hostel’s kitchen later.

Next, Lauren went on her own to look around a bit, and Megan and I relaxed and soaked up some sun in the main piazza for a while. Then we checked out the prices and schedule for the Pisa tickets that we’d need in two days, and then hung out by the river Arno. The river is pretty from afar, but is VERY dirty up close – envision a river full of cappuccino, and you’ll basically know what it looks like. And apparently Arno is famous for huge river rats, though we didn’t see any (Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist). Not for lack of trying, however.

When we had tired of that, we went to the hostel to try to make our pasta for dinner, but the kitchen was occupied all evening, and we weren’t sure what to do/weren’t sure if we were allowed to use it. Especially since the owners were kind of awkward, and apparently live in the hostel itself, and so were no doubt making dinner in there. And it seemed like every time we talked to them, something got lost in translation, and we didn’t want to bother with it this time around. So we ended up cracking open our pasta and eating a little of it like popcorn. Before you get all judge-y, let me tell you that it was actually quite tasty! Fresh pasta is soft enough to eat – granted, the cheese would have tasted better if it were melty and not all dry…but you do what you have to do sometimes. We snacked in lieu of dinner, and watched some Italian TV (first hostel I’ve seen with a television in the room!). We understood about one word in twenty, but it was still fun to watch Zach Braff speaking in lilt-y Italian. After that it was off to sleep in our comfy beds!

The next day, Lauren was in the mood to strike out on her own, so Megan and I made plans and got started early. The first stop was the David at the Academia museum – we were both very excited to see it, and were not disappointed! This was another of the trip’s highlights for me. What a stunning work of art – it’s one of those intriguing things that one feels like staring at for a good long time. The huge head, hands, and feet that you always hear about were very apparent and quite interesting. And it was so detailed – you could see the veins in his hands, his muscles, his pupils, his…well. Let’s just say the guy could’ve used a leaf. But anyway, it was so cool! Definitely worth our time.

The museum itself was fascinating as well – for once, each piece of art had a plaque below it with information about its creator, origin, and history, so we actually knew where stuff came from and what it meant. This made every piece about ten times more interesting than it would otherwise have been, and consequently I was quite fascinated! I absolutely loved that museum. My favorite room was the one where they had plaster replicas of a great deal of statues which are apparently in several other locations. Even though they weren’t the originals, they were absolutely beautiful, and I got to find out who they were this time! I’ve decided that I am pretty much in love with classical statues…there’s just something great about them.

After the museum, it was time to go to Il Duomo, where we got in line to climb up to the cupola. The wait was rather long, but was made slightly less boring by the entertaining British family ahead of us, and the group of German boys playing soccer beside the line, who kept kicking the ball over by us accidentally. Finally, we got in and started the climb. It was yet another large set of daunting, narrow steps, but this was getting to be old hat by now, so it didn’t faze us too much. The view from the top was gorgeous – it may have been my favorite of the trip. The buildings themselves were interesting, more or less, but it was the green and grey mountains that made the view. So beautiful! And the inside of the dome was amazing as well – it was completely painted with vivid pictures of heaven and hell – around the rim, there were various demons and people suffering away, and as it got farther to the top, things got better and better for the painted people – around the top rim was heaven. Yeah, kind of hard to describe. But it may have been my favorite painted ceiling (wow, lots of favorites in Florence…) so far, which is saying something, as I’ve seen a LOT.

Once we’d seen Il Duomo, we went back to the hostel for round two of Pasta-Making Attempts. And failed once again…we found out the kitchen was not available for our use at all. Figures. So we had raw pasta once again, rather than wasting it. It’s remarkably filling, so whatever. With our bellies reasonably happy once again, we made another gelato run, and went back to Il Duomo to see the actual cathedral part. It was fairly uninteresting, but it was free, so whatever. After that, we had completed all of our sight-seeing goals for the day, so we went back to the hostel and took a lovely and much-needed two-hour nap. Then it was off to the piazza to relax again and another pizza-and-gelato run. And on our way, we ran into Edgar, Val, and Sol, three other students in our exchange program at the U of Navarra! What are the chances?

Then it was back to the hostel yet again, where we rearranged our luggage and settled in for the night. We were surprised by a knock at the door later on and yet more surprised to see the owner of the hostel standing there with a serving of homemade tiramisu for each of us! This raised him rather higher in our esteem than he had been before, I daresay. Yum!

And that about did it for our Florence trip. Next stop: Pisa and Cinque Terre!

Part II: When in Rome...

2010-04-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

After a long day of traveling on Friday, we were in Rome! It took a little doing – our plane was delayed, and since the information about our Rome hostel said that check-in time is only until 10 p.m., we were starting to get a little worried. Our hostel was on the other-ish side of town from the airport, and Rome is HUGE, so it would take us a good hour to get over there. We soon realized that there was no way we’d make the 10 p.m. deadline, so Lauren called the hostel and explained the situation. Thankfully, they were very understanding, and said that it was fine as long as we got there before midnight. And when we were there, there were still people checking in after that time, so we probably would have been fine anyway. But I think it was best to double-check, at any rate.

Anyway, after two bus connections and some uncertain searching on some dark-ish streets, we were there. It was rather more adventure than we wanted at that point, but we made it safely. The hostel itself was great (even though the stairwell smelled strongly of cat) – it’s a converted convent and only women are allowed to stay there It was cute – all the artwork and such on the walls were photos of women, articles about women, and paintings done by or of women. No boys allowed! Which was sooo nice – after all the sketchy men we’ve seen on our travels, it was wonderful to feel safe and know that our roommates were for sure not going to try anything :-S And our room was so spacious and nice, with comfy beds and big closets to lock up our stuff. All in all a good choice for a three-night stay, I daresay! Anyway, all there was time for that night was some e-mail checking and some sleep, to get ready for a big day the next day.

On our first full day in Rome, we got up early to head to Vatican City! It was a short walk from our hostel, which was nice. We were instantly impressed with the outside courtyard (I’ll be able to recognize it on TV now!), and took some pictures as we waited in line to enter St. Peter’s Basilica. The line was fairly fast-moving, and we were in before we knew it. What an impressive building! It’s got to be one of the biggest structures I’ve ever seen, and so beautiful. After looking around inside for a bit, we headed over to the cupola to climb up. 551 dizzying and claustrophobic steps later, we were at the top! This was our second city view, and quite an impressive one. By the time we got back down, our legs were quite shaky, but it was worth it.

Next up was the Vatican Museum. The line for the Basilica may have been a breeze, but this one was decidedly not – we waited in a huge line along the wall for practically 3 hours. I’m pretty sure it’s the longest line I’ve ever been in! Thankfully we had some cookies and pumpkin seeds to tide us over while we waited, but we were more than ready to get inside when we finally got to the door. There were so many people inside! Not losing each other in the crowd proved to be a bit of a feat. After looking around a bit, we bypassed most of the museums because the only thing we really wanted to see was the Sistine Chapel. We found the first sign for it and headed off. Little did we know, they herd you through a seemingly endless section of the museum before getting to the actual Chapel – every time I saw another sign for it, I thought, “Maybe it’s just around the bend!” But it wasn’t, for a very long time. It’s probably good because there might not be too many people who would look at that part of the museum if the setup were different. And at least there were cool things to look at. But it made us rather impatient after a while.

Anyway, 20 signs and a mile of museum (well, that’s what it felt like, anyway) later, we were in the Sistine Chapel! It was worth it, I daresay. Everyone says that it’s smaller than they thought it would be…I guess I’d have to agree with them there. It was very impressive, though, with a ceiling-full of gorgeous paintings by Michelangelo. There were guards patrolling and periodically shouting “No photos!” and “Quiet, please!” in English and Italian. Nobody listened, though. Including us…we sneaked some fairly good photos of the ceiling, especially the famous painting of God and Adam reaching out to touch the tip of each other’s index fingers! So cool.

After we’d gotten our fill of the Chapel, it was high time for lunch. We found a cute little restaurant and had our first yummy meal of real Italian pizza and pasta! Next, it was on to the Spanish Steps. They were pretty cool, though difficult to see because they were absolutely covered with people! Nevertheless, we found a free spot to sit, and spoke some Spanish with each other and with a random group next to us :-D It just had to be done, you know?

Our next stop was the Trevi Fountain. I absolutely loved it! After soaking in the beauty for a moment, we muscled our way to the front, and each of us did the obligatory wish-and-coin-toss-over-the-shoulder. So much fun! I guess we’ll see if our wishes come true…

After the Fountain, it was getting to be time to eat again. We weren’t really sure where we wanted to go, so after some aimless searching, we decided to go back to the hostel to take a better look at the map and ask the front desk person for suggestions. We were hoping to find a McDonald’s (yes, I know, we are shameless…), but had been unsuccessful since we were in a more residential part of the city by the time we started searching. So Megan took a look in her Italy guidebook back at the hostel to see if she could find a likely area close by. She discovered that there was a little plaza not too far from our hostel, so we headed back out to find it. After locating it and looking around a bit, Megan spotted the sought-after McDonald’s sign down the street! This rivaled our McDonald’s moment in Paris for excitement – once again, good ol’ Mickey D’s didn’t disappoint :-D We really ought to write a nice letter to the CEO, or something. Anyway, we had a delicious (and cheap!) dinner there, and then had some still more delicious gelato from a nearby shop! Absolutely amazing. I had cappuccino, mint chip, and – get this – nutella flavors! Nutella and gelato are possibly the best things ever…so whoever thought to combine them is a genius! We took our gelato back to the middle of the plaza (or should I say, piazza) and sat eating it while listening to some rather skilled street performers. All in all, a successful evening and a great day!

The next day was Easter! It was definitely different from any other Easter of my existence. It was weird not going to church and being with my family, but it couldn’t be helped. It was early-to-rise again, and we headed to our first sight of the day, Palatino Hill. We went here first because Megan learned that the ticket you get is good for both the Hill and the Colosseum (which I apparently do not know how to spell…), but the line at the Hill is almost always shorter. And how – since it was early a rainy (the only day of bad weather during the whole trip!) Easter Sunday, the line was nonexistent! We got our tickets and explored the awesome ancient Roman ruins there, all the time wishing that our history major friends were there to tell us what we were looking at. It was still really pretty and interesting, though. Got a lot of great pictures!

After the Hill, it was Colosseum time! This was my favorite part of our time in Rome, and one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. So astounding! And Megan was right about the ticket thing – we hardly had to wait at all, which was fantastic. The place was such an amazing sight. I can only imagine what it must have looked like in its heyday! And another aspect that I loved about the place was that they had a substantial exhibit with the history of the place, what it used to be like, what the shows consisted of, and what the people were like who went to see them. There were displays of what gladiator’s outfits probably looked like, as well as a good deal of information about them. I was absolutely fascinated! It was so nice to finally learn the history that went with what I was seeing – this happens surprisingly rarely during European travel, unless you’re rich enough to shell out the bucks for a tour or an audio-guide (which I am not). It was such great fun to take my time and read about all the super interesting stuff! I was wishing that my dad and brother and various history-loving guy-friends (you know who you are...) were there to geek out with me, but alas, I had to do so on my own. But it was still fun :-)

After touring the Colloseum in the cold and the rain, we were feeling quite chilled and ready for some lunch. Finding a pasta place of the type we were in the mood for proved rather more difficult than expected – I mean, it’s Rome…there ought to be such places on every corner, you’d think. But apparently not. After some searching, we finally found a place. We were all getting a bit crabby, so food was definitely in order. It was a pretty good place – I had some yummy lasagna and some wine. Rather more than I needed…I felt I ought to drink the whole ¼ of a liter, as I had paid for it. But I got a bit tipsier than I had planned on…oh well. Live and learn?

Once our bellies were full, it was time for the last sight of the day – the Pantheon. It was cool, but rather anti-climactic after the Colloseum, especially since the outside was half-covered with scaffolding because of restorations. This seems to happen to us a lot…it was still neat to see it, though. After that, we had no plans for the rest of the day, and ended up going back to the hostel for the afternoon. We napped and relaxed from about 4:00 to 8:00 in the evening. It was quite glorious, and just what we needed on a rainy afternoon. After that, it was time for more McDonald’s and gelato! Just as yummy as before, I might add. And then we went back to the hostel again to get ready to leave – we started the next leg of our journey in the morning. On to Florence!

Here We Go…Part I: Sevilla

2010-04-12T16:56:00.000-07:00

All right, my friends. Are you ready for this? I haven’t blogged in quite some time, but I feel like I’ve been everywhere else in the meantime! I have so much to tell you about my grand Semana Santa adventure with my friends Megan and Lauren, so bear with me, because it’s going to take a while! But don’t worry – I’m doing it the smart way this time – we’re gonna take it city by city, so you don’t get overwhelmed. Okay, everyone ready? Follow me!

So. Our trip began with a train from Pamplona to Madrid. We generally take a bus for this always-necessary part of our journeys, but we happened to find a good deal for the train, which is about twice as fast, so we went for it! This was probably the most comfortable of our train rides during the trip – the train seemed pretty new, and they even showed a movie during the trip! It was The Painted Veil, which is one that I’ve wanted to see. It was very sad, but very good! Anyway, after a nice train ride, we had a bit of a wait until our bus to Sevilla. This was not quite as fun, as we had to travel from about 1 a.m. to 7 a.m., so we pretended to sleep, anyway. And Lauren and I had a panicked moment when the bus stopped at about 3:00 in the morning for a pit stop. When we got back out from the bathroom, the bus was nowhere to be seen! Thankfully, Megan had opted to stay on it, so we called her and she told us that the bus was just around the corner, getting gas. So after climbing on an identical bus that was not our own, we made it back on with plenty of time to spare. So it was an interesting night all around. But as a student traveler on a tight budget, sacrifices must be made.

And so we arrived in Sevilla, feeling a bit worn around the edges and in great need of showers, but we were there! We found our hostel without too much trouble and dropped our bags off. We couldn’t check in until 2:00 p.m., unfortunately, but we made the best of it by beginning our explorations in Sevilla’s Casco Viejo and doing a bit of souvenir shopping. We had a picnic lunch with some of the food we had with us (my host mom was overly generous as usual, which was a great help for the Sevilla part of the trip – saved us all a bunch of money!)

Finally, 2:00 arrived and we checked into our hostel, where we proceeded to take a 2-hour nap and then got cleaned up, at long last. After that, it was off to Casco Viejo again, in search of pasos, the floats and Easter processions that occupy the majority of Sevilla’s population during Semana Santa. They were amazing! It was so neat to see these huge floats with statues of Jesus or the Virgin Mary or both atop them, bobbing above the crowds. And all of the pasos were led and followed by Nazarenos, people in the traditional Easter-procession costume. They wear huge pointy hoods and flowy robes, and look very mysterious and cool! I might have to post a pic of them on here later, because it’s kind of hard to explain. And the music was fantastic – solemn and haunting and very compelling. I loved all the processions we got to watch – I’ve seen pictures and videos of similar things, but believe me when I tell you that it’s infinitely more awesome in person! Definitely one of the highlights of the whole trip.

On our second day in Sevilla, we slept in a bit (we were still recuperating…) and then met up with Kristen M. and Lise, who were beginning their tour of Southern Spain in Sevilla and were there the same time we were. It was so much fun to spend the day with them! We went to the Sevilla cathedral, which was very impressive both inside and out. Christopher Columbus’ tomb is located there, which was so cool to see! And there was a huge wall covered in gilded carvings of Bible stories…this also is rather hard to explain. But it was quite amazing! Another cool detail was that parts of the cathedral’s floors were heavily speckled with wax drops from the huge candles that the Nazarenos carry around – the candles drip while their owners are waiting to start their long walk (some processions went from 12:00 at night to 2:00 the next day! I have no idea how they do it). To finish up our cathedral trip, we climbed up La Giralda, the big bell tower there. Back in the days when the cathedral was a Muslim mosque, this tower was used for the five-times-daily call to prayer. From the top, we saw some very beautiful views of Sevilla! This was the first of many city views that we experienced. But more about that later.

After the cathedral, it was picnic time again! We found a comfortable spot in the park and ate a bit of lunch. After eating, we found a shady spot on the grass and just chilled there for over an hour. It was glorious! We all needed the time to relax. I love to take a break during the day when I’m traveling, I’ve found. Otherwise, I get worn out and burned out, and I can’t enjoy things as much. So our little pseudo-siesta was just the thing!

Next, it was off to see the murallas. These were fairly uninteresting – just more old Spanish walls, like many we’ve seen before. Still kind of interesting, though, and the walk through the pretty streets was nice. Especially because we made a stop for torrijas on the way! Torrijas are a very yummy treat that you can get in Spain around Easter-time. It’s sort of similar to French toast, though with honey and a ton of cinnamon and sugar. Almost too sweet, but very good. Also on the way, we had a great time looking at all the beautiful Spanish ladies in their traditional outfits – the black lace veil over the huge hair-comb, with a gorgeous little black dress. They all looked so stylish and beautiful and perfect – I just wanted to be one of them! Especially since it seemed like one of the requirements of the outfit was to have a gorgeous Spanish man on one’s arm. Heehee! :-D

We made our leisurely way back from the murallas, making a stop at Kristen M. and Lise’s hostel to use the internet and check out the pretty place where K and L were staying. Then, after a bit of dinner, it was time to go to the bar Carbonería for a free flamenco show! We had found it the night before, thankfully, so it wasn’t too hard to navigate the twisty streets a second time. Really though, Sevilla’s Casco Viejo is about ten times more confusing than Pamplona’s, which is saying something. They really didn’t think much of city planning back in the day. Anyway, we found our seats in the bar and waited for the show to start! Lise’s friend Basilio joined us there as well, so it was a lot of fun to see him and hear about his solo travels around Southern Spain up to that point.

The bar was really cool – though there were tourists, the place felt very genuine, and was a bit of a hole-in-the-wall, which was nifty. And the show itself was fantastic! There was a man playing guitar and another singing, and one woman who danced her heart out! Flamenco has got to be the most complicated, energy-draining dance I have ever beheld. It was so much fun to watch!

The next day, we didn’t do a whole lot, since we left on our plane for Rome in the early evening. So we got packed up (which took a while because we had to make sure that all of our bags passed Ryan Air’s rather stingy weight and size requirements…let’s just say we were all wearing a couple of extra articles of clothing) and went for a little walk along the bridge, while Lauren and Megan carried their towels so they would dry in the sun and weigh less in the suitcase later. We probably looked a bit comical, but oh well. Sometimes you just have to make do! Or lots of times, as we found out. Anyway, the walk was rather interesting…there were lots of people sleeping on the riverbank, presumably where they had collapsed after their nighttime shenanigans. And of course, lots of couples making out. Europeans are generally pretty free with the PDA, which makes things interesting sometimes. And the farther we walked, the sketchier things got, so we made a swift turn-around and headed back to our hostel to pick up our bags and get going. Then it was off to the bus stop to catch our ride to the airport. We had a bit of trouble finding the stop, but a nice young man (who spoke excellent English, as it turned out) saw us puzzling over our map and asked us if we needed help. We gratefully accepted, and he got us pointed in the right direction. We found it in time and plopped ourselves on a bench to wait, only to make a mad dash when the bus arrived earlier than we thought it would. Thankfully, it was a short distance and we made it in plenty of time.

Next, we got to the airport, made the weight limit by the skin of our teeth, breezed through security, and got on our plane to Rome! Our first RyanAir experience (well, Lauren’s and my first, anyway) was a success, I daresay, even though it involved a good deal of waiting in line and a bit of sweating over bags.

Stay tuned for Part II – Rome!

Off to Italy!

2010-03-30T05:53:00.001-07:00

So, I'm going to take a page out of Lise's book (er...blog) and give you a bit of an itinerary of my trip to Italy with Lauren and Megan! I'm leaving in just a few short hours! I'm nervous, but very excited :)
So here we go -

Tuesday (today!) - Train from Pamplona to Madrid at 7:55
Bus from Madrid to Seville at 1:00 a.m. (ouch)
Wednesday - Arrive in Seville at 7:00-ish in the morning
Check into hostel and start exploring/watching processions
Thursday - More exploring and processions
Friday - Finish up things in Seville and fly to Rome in the evening!
Get to Rome around 9:00, check into hostel, and possibly go see the Good
Friday procession
Saturday - To the Vatican, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica
Sunday - To the Colosseum, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, etc.
Monday - Train to Florence in the morning
Arrive in Florence around noon
See Il Duomo
Tuesday - Explore Florence and see the David and perhaps a museum
Wednesday - Leave Florence
Pisa and the leaning tower in the morning
Train to Cinque Terre, arrive by 1:00 or so
Explore Cinque Terre
Night train to Venice
Thursday - Arrive in Venice in the morning
Check into hotel, freshen up, perhaps sleep??
Go to the island to explore
Come back and relax in hotel
Friday - Explore mainland Venice
Plane to Girona in the evening
Arrive in Girona in the evening
Bus to Barcelona bus station
Bus to Pamplona (yes, this is our third night-time travel day. We're not
actually trying to kill ourselves, I promise :-S)
Saturday - Arrive in Pamplona early in the morning
Sleep!

So there you have it! It'll be a full two weeks, but it's gonna be great. You'll hear all about it when I get back! Have a great Easter, everyone :)God bless!

"Home Sweet Home"

2010-03-27T16:46:00.001-07:00

After so much travelling recently, I’ve enjoyed sticking around Pamplona this week. It’s been nice to stay close to home. Or the closest thing I have to it, anyway. Especially since, on Tuesday, I’ll be leaving for a ten-day trip to Sevilla and Italy (read: Rome, Florence, and Venice), so I definitely need the time to relax. I’m super excited for my Semana Santa trip, but I have a feeling that I’ll be more than happy to be done traveling for a while once I get back to Pamplona again.

Even though this week was a little more chill, there were definitely some fun things going on! On Monday night, I went with Julie and Maja to a play at the university. There was a theatre festival these last two weeks with a different play every night, and the one we picked was called “La Cantante Calva,” (The Bald Singer). Apparently, it was originally a French play, but we saw it in Spanish, obviously. We loved it! For my dear fellow English majors (if any of you are actually reading this…), the play was very Samuel Beckett-esque. It was absurdist theater, and it was hilarious! It seemed to have Beckett’s postmodern theme of the simultaneous necessity and impossibility of communication (okay, I’ll stop being a nerd now, I promise). For example, there was a part where the characters were all telling stories, but the listeners would have the wrong reaction; someone would tell a sad story and the others would all laugh, or someone would tell a funny story and they’d get scared or start crying. So funny! And I understood the play for the most part, which was nice. There were moments when everyone else in the crowd was laughing except for Julie, Maja, and I because we didn’t quite get a few of the jokes, but still, we were able to get some of the humor. That was a good feeling – when you can understand the humor in a language, you know you’re doing well.

Tuesday was also lots of fun – I went to Barañain (a part of Pamplona that used to be a pueblo but is now connected) with Kristen M. and Lise to see the market there and visit them at their host home. The market was cool – there were lots of fun things to look at, and it was neat to hear the vendors calling out to passersby to try to convince them to look and buy. We even got some little muffins for free from a (very attractive) young man at a bakery stall – when we were eyeing the yummy-looking sweets, he was like, “Oh, you guys are Erasmus students, right? Here, these are for you!” Hehe! Such fun. We’re not strictly Erasmus students, since that’s the European exchange student program and we’re part of a different one, but that’s how the people of Pamplona know the exchange students, so it’s just easier not to correct people.

After the market, I went with Kristen M. and Lise to their house. The place they live in here is gorgeous! It’s the most regular house-like place I’ve been in since coming here. The houses in Barañain are all connected to each other, so it still doesn’t look much like an American neighborhood, but it definitely feels a lot more residential than the part of town I live in. The house is huge and really pretty, and it was fun to see Kristen and Lise’s room and kitchen and bathroom and all that good stuff. We even got to watch part of an episode of “Sin Tetas No Hay Paraíso,” a really awesome TV series that the girls watch with their host family most nights. Their host sister bought some of the seasons on DVD, since the show isn’t currently running on TV. Which is a shame, because it looks really cool! After that, it was time for lunch with the girls’ host parents, Antonio and Peñi. The meal was delicious, and Antonio and Peñi were so much fun! I found them very easy to talk to (why is it that I can talk in Spanish better with everyone besides my own host family? I don’t get it), and they were really nice. Peñi had us in stitches with her funny stories, and both of them taught us some new words and such. A very fun time
:-)

Wednesday wasn’t too eventful, other than the fact that I got to watch a historical romance movie! In English!!! I was stoked. A friend of mine sent it to me, and I will be eternally grateful to her. And that same night there was a little thunderstorm, which made me super happy. I’ve missed the sound of thunder! And I have a feeling that it doesn’t come around a lot in Spain, so I made sure to enjoy it to the fullest.

On Thursday, we had our last dance class, which made Kristen M. and Lauren and I pretty sad. Taking that class is one of the best decisions we’ve made here! We learned so much (much more than dancing, as well) and made lots of friends. It was so nice to do an activity other than class for a while, and made us feel like we were a part of real Spanish life and that we were taking advantage of one of the many wonderful things this city has to offer. Pretty much the best 32 euro I ever spent
:-)
Also on Thursday, Lise and I had a fun little moment – we were walking through campus after class, and we saw this little tiny bird hanging out on the sidewalk. Instead of flying away when we got closer, like we would have expected, it just sat there, unperturbed. We got closer and bent down to look at it – I even touched it – and it still didn’t do anything! We were amazed. We thought it must have a hurt wing or something, so we thought we’d better move it to the grass where no one would step on it. So I picked it up, and it just chilled in my hands for a bit – not trying to get away, not pecking at me – just sitting. When I went to put it down, it perched on my finger for a moment, and then all the sudden, it just flew up into the tree nearby! So it wasn’t hurt after all. So crazy! I felt like Snow White or something :-P It totally made my day!

On Friday, I got together with Julie and Maja again and we went to Julie’s flat to make lunch together – she taught us how to make veggie pâtè, tortilla de patata and tortilla with vegetables (Maja is a vegetarian and Julie doesn’t eat meat that often, so…). It was so yummy! And it was so much fun to hang out and talk with those gals – we’re all pretty low-energy, calm sort of people (most of the time :-P) so it was a quiet and relaxed afternoon, which was nice. We had a great time talking about the differences and similarities between our countries and learning about each other. It’s cool that all three of us are from different countries, and yet we have a lot of common ground.

Today has been pretty relaxed – some more planning for Italy and some homework, and that’s about it. Oh, and I got to sleep in for the first time in about three weeks! That was heavenly. Tomorrow I think I’m going to go to the Palm Sunday procession with Kristen M. and Lise – I’m really excited to see what that will be like!

This will probably be my last blog post until after I get back from Italy. Just so you all know. So in two weeks, expect to see way more than you ever wanted to know about my fabulous tour of Italy! Hee hee :-) I send my affection to you all, and I’ll talk with you again soon!

Three

2010-03-23T18:10:00.001-07:00

This last weekend was a weekend of threes, it seems. Three days off (Friday was a saint’s day), three girls traveling together, three Spanish provinces, and three amazing cities!

Since we had a long weekend, Kristen M. and Lauren and I decided to take advantage of the extra time to take a weekend trip to Madrid, Toledo, and Segovia. We had traveled the weekend before and again on Wednesday for the class trip, so we weren’t necessarily excited to spend another ten hours on a bus. But we put a good face on it and decided it’d be worth our while, and this weekend was a good time to go. It might have been nice to spread it out a bit, but that’s just how the dates fall sometimes.
Anyway, we had a fantastic time and were so glad we went! On Friday, we left on the 7:00 a.m. bus (erg…so early. It was really entertaining, though, to see all the young people coming back from their night of partying) in order to get to Madrid in a decent amount of time. We got there at close to 1:00 and set off to find our hostel. This proved to be rather tougher than we thought it would be, because our hostel was in the old part of town. And we all know how great the Medieval Spaniards were at making streets that follow any sort of logic…ahem. So after about an hour of walking around and a couple of phone calls to the hostel, we found it. It wasn’t so bad, though…one quickly learns that these things just happen with European travel. I’ve learned to roll with it; we always get there eventually. No pasa nada, as we say here.

Our hostel was nice; one of the best we’ve stayed in so far (which is a grand total of three, but whatever). The staff was super helpful and nice, and we got a pretty good breakfast the two mornings we stayed there. And as we found out later on Friday, what we thought would be a room that we were going to have to share with two other random people turned out to be a private triple. As I’m sure you will be glad to know, Mom and Dad :-P But yeah, we were so happy! What a blessing to not have to worry about potentially sketchy people staying with us/causing us to worry about the safety of our luggage. God is so good to us, as always.

Anyway, on Friday afternoon, we headed off on our first side trip. We had been planning on going to Segovia first, but since it was nearing 4:00 by this time and since we wouldn’t be able to get to either town until 5:00, we ended up deciding to go to Toledo at the last minute, because we felt like we wouldn’t have time to do the sites of Segovia justice before it got dark, or before they closed. So off to Toledo it was. Incidentally, this turned out to be a simply brilliant decision! We couldn’t have imagined a more perfect way to spend an evening than in that city. Our first impression of the city was a fantastic one – the old bridge, murales (stone walls, like those of the Ciudadela) and rocky hills were so striking and beautiful! The whole place looked so darn Spanish-y to me…just the sort of place where I could picture Don Quijote and Sancho Panza gallivanting about on some harebrained adventure. Well, we were in Castilla-La Mancha, after all.

We set off right away to explore the city. We fell more in love with the place with every step! We climbed up the walls and saw a wonderful view of the city (as well as some gorgeous flowering trees! In March!). From there, we came to the old part of the town, where we were enchanted by the typical narrow streets and antique surroundings. We saw the gorgeous cathedral, bought some very delicious marzipan – or mázapan, as it’s called in Spanish (Toledo is apparently famous for this, which I didn’t know before going there), and did some shopping in the best tourist shops I’ve seen so far. It was here that we finally found authentic Spanish merchandise, the likes of which we’ve wanted to find ever since we came. Needless to say, we all found a number of items that we couldn’t live without. And I had a great time looking at all the medieval-style swords and daggers that were sold in practically all of the shops. Apparently, Toledo is as famous for metalworking and sword-making as it is for marzipan; which is something else I learned for the first time that day. I was fascinated by it all! I wanted to buy a dagger soooo badly. But then I remembered that I should spend my money on stuff that’s actually useful/isn’t going to weigh down my suitcase unduly. I had fun geeking out over it though, at any rate. Oh, the joys of having read Lord of the Rings and the like way too many times. And I couldn’t resist having Kristen M. take a picture of me with one of the Monty-Python-esque suits of armor. Umm…what obsession?

Later, we even found some turrón in one of the nice little chocolate shops there. Kristen M. took advantage of the opportunity and bought a big bar of it – I hadn’t heard about it much before this, but apparently it’s a type of chocolate that is super hard to find except around Christmastime. And boy, is it yummy! This experience was made even better by the fact that we had a great conversation with the store’s very kind, grandfatherly proprietor. While we were eating the sample of the turrón he’d given us before we bought some, Lauren asked him if he’d lived in Toledo all his life. He said yes, he had, and said, “But you ladies have lived in America for all of your lives.” We affirmed this, and then he said, “You’re from Minnesota, aren’t you?” We were shocked! We asked him how he knew that, and he said that, last year, he became friends with a Minnesotan girl who was studying in Toledo and who used to come to his shop all the time. She had left for home in May, and the shop owner told us that they had both cried buckets when she left! He even had a text from her still saved on his phone. But yeah, we’re guessing that he asked us if we were from Minnesota because he probably doesn’t know many other states besides that one. But still! What are the chances? It was such a cool moment. How wonderful to meet such an amazing person!

After finishing up our shopping, we climbed back down the hill and took our time enjoying the beautiful city lights (it was dark by this time) and the warm weather. We then headed back to Madrid to look for an inexpensive place to eat not-bocadillos for dinner. We were quite successful in this endeavour – we found a neat little place not too far from our hostel, and right on the edge of the famous Puerta del Sol. It was even right by the hotel that Kristen M., Lise, and I stayed at on our first night in Spain! That sure brought back some memories. Anyway, the restaurant was great, and pretty reasonable. We shared a pitcher of some amazing sangria (gosh…I’m gonna miss that stuff), and I had a vegetable sandwich that was piled high with lots of lovely things. I always seem to crave vegetables like a sailor with scurvy whenever I’m on these trips. After that, we headed back to the hostel to rest up for another big day.
On Saturday, we got up early again to catch the bus to Segovia. We headed straight to the acueducto (the Roman aqueduct, for you English-speakers) and took lots of pictures. After that, it was off to the cathedral (we didn’t feel like spending 3 euros to see the inside of yet another gothic cathedral, so we looked around the outside, which was pretty darn cool anyway), and then to the Alcázar, Segovia’s castle, after which Sleeping Beauty’s castle was modeled, I’m told. We liked it a lot – it was a lot more decorated and interesting inside than the castle at Olite. After this, we did a little bit more shopping, stopped at Eroski to pick up some provisions, and rushed to catch the 12:30 bus; all while trying not to get blown away by the sudden gale-force winds. It was a fun morning, and Segovia’s a neat little town. I have to say, though; I was more struck by Toledo, for some reason (no offense, A.J. and Leanne…). Though, in Segovia’s defense, it was a very quiet Saturday morning, with few things open and not-so-nice weather, so that may have had something to do with it.

Once we got back to Madrid, we went to see the Palacio Real, the huge palace where Spain’s royal family used to live (Rey Juan Carlos and his peeps live in a different, smaller place now). Lauren wasn’t feeling the whole go-in-and-look-at-old-stuff thing just then (which I can well understand…a person just becomes arted-out after a while, with so much to see), so she ended up going on a walk instead. Kristen M. and I decided to go for it, though, and went to look around for about an hour. We didn’t feel the need to stay and ponder anything, but it was cool to see it. It was an extremely luxurious place, as you may well imagine, and we enjoyed seeing the huge crystal chandeliers and the opulently furnished rooms.

After that, we got on the metro and headed to the other side of town, to the bullring! We decided that we couldn’t go to Madrid and not take advantage of the opportunity to go to a bullfight. And of course, it was something we’ve all wanted to do since coming to Spain. And we definitely weren’t sorry we did it! For 2.20 euro, we got a two-and-a-half-hour show in seats that were rather high up (but we could see everything just fine, so that was alright). It was so cool! There were three matadors, and they killed six bulls in all. I thought I would be bothered by the violence involved, but I was too busy being fascinated with the whole affair. I guess I’m more bloodthirsty than I thought. Anyway, it was so cool to finally see something I’ve heard so much about. There are actually a lot more people involved in these things than I knew. After the initial procession of all the different guys in the bullfight, they let out the first bull, and a group of toreros waved around their capes and taunted the bull for a while. Next came two horsemen with long spears, and they poked the bull a few times and made it start bleeding a bit. After that came another torero with a couple of short sticks with hooks on the ends that he stuck into the bull’s back. The bull had about four or five of these hanging from him by the end of that part. And finally, the matador came out with his red cape and sword. He threw his cap on the ground and proceeded to do a very dangerous sort of dance with the bull and strike a few manly poses to draw cheers from the crowd. Then, at the opportune moment, he drove his sword as deep as he could into the bull’s back. Once the sword is in, the bull generally dies in a couple of minutes (the last one took rather longer, and it took a lot more tries before the sword went into it…that was rather weird), and a couple of other toreros come to finish it off if need be. I could have done without the times when they stuck a sharp object into the bull’s brain and jimmied it around for a while, causing the bull to twitch rather dramatically. I felt rather less desensitized at these moments. But whatever. After the bull is dead, some men lead some mules with belled harnesses out to drag the bull’s body away, and then the next one comes out shortly after and the whole process begins again. The most exciting one was the fifth bull – one of the toreros definitely got gored by the bull – he was tossed in the air like a rag doll. O.o We rather feared for his life for a moment, but he made it out okay and didn’t seem to be bleeding. I’m sure he didn’t feel too great in the morning, however. Also, with this bull, the matador was the most daring and did some pretty tricky and skilled moves. It was a lot of fun to watch! The whole experience was definitely one of the most unique I’ve had. I really liked it! It was fun to do something so uniquely Spanish. I really wished that my dad and brother could have been there, though. I think they’d really like it! Someday, perhaps.

So, that pretty much wrapped up our Saturday. After another delicious dinner at the same restaurant as before (same waitress, even), we were done for the day. We had yet another early morning on Sunday, during which we went to El Rastro, the gigantic market that Madrid has every week. It was a neat experience – tons of booths with all manner of interesting things. We found a few little things to buy there, and then went to do the art museum thing. We saw some of both the Prado and the Reina Sofia. They were very cool, though, as I’ve said, I’m pretty good to go as far as art is concerned, so I wasn’t as into it as you might expect. It’s sad…I’m starting to feel like such a snob. I mean really, who gets bored with great art? Leave it to me, I guess. Really, though, I did enjoy it. My favorite part was seeing Picasso’s famous Guernica painting. So huge, and very compelling.

After this, we ended up in the huge Parque del Retiro. It was a beautiful place – a nice, quiet piece of nature in the middle of an enormous, bustling city. It was nice to relax there for a while and enjoy the springy-ness. We spent rather longer there than we should have done, though…when we started to walk back, we realized it was already after 3:00, so we’d have to book it to make our 4:00 bus. We walked sooo fast over rather hilly ground, and I felt like I was going to collapse by the time it was all over. Just when I thought I couldn’t gain any more leg muscle…anyway, we made it in time to catch our bus, thankfully. Since everyone and their abuela was trying to get back to Pamplona at the same time we were, we couldn’t get onto our (very packed) bus until about 10 minutes later than scheduled. So it all worked out in the end. After yet another five-hour bus ride (they played Cyrano de Bergerac during it, which I’m sure I would have enjoyed had I not lost track of the Spanish dialogue about halfway through), we were very ready to be back in Pamplona. It’s weird, though…I always feel like I want to be in my real home (wherever that is…) after these trips, and not just Pamplona. But for now, Pamplona is home enough.

And I’ll be plenty happy to spend the rest of the week here, enjoying this town to the fullest. After Semana Santa, I’m gonna be pretty O.D.’ed on traveling. But oh well, I’ll get to see some more amazing things, regardless. And I daresay it’ll make my last three (or so) weeks in Pamplona all the sweeter.

A Capital Day in the Capital

2010-03-18T06:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a long and quite amazing day! Our Civilization and Culture class (well, all the girls from it, anyway) took a day trip to Madrid to see some of the sites that are pertinent to our class. I wasn’t sure at first whether it would be worth riding 10 hours on a bus in one day just to spend a few hours in Madrid, but as I was happy to discover, it definitely was!

Before stopping at the first place on the docket, we drove around the city a bit. What a great place! It rivals Barcelona for beauty, in my opinion – what little I’ve seen of it, anyway. After my longer trip there this weekend, I’ll be able to give you a more definitive answer. Anyway, the first stop was the Senado, which is the building in which Spain’s senate meets to do their thing. This ended up being my favorite of the places we went to. I wasn’t really sure what to expect here, but I was very pleasantly surprised with big-as-life paintings, some very Spanish-y looking portraits, and some cool statues; some of the most expressive I’ve seen so far here. And of course, all the furnishings were very posh. My favorite part was the little library inside – it was full of beautiful old books, and you all know how obsessed I am with that sort of thing. And the architecture was so neat; two floors, with all the books behind metal doors with big glass panels. I’m having a hard time explaining it…but believe me, it was cool. And when we left the Senado, the tour guide gave us all a gift! We each got a wooden box that had a pretty journal and a little bag with a pencil, eraser, and sharpener inside! I was excited.

After the Senado, it was time for a lunch break. We headed to our next stop, the Biblioteca Nacional de España, and just chilled in the front yard and enjoyed the sun. I never saw the temperature, but it felt close to 70 degrees Fahrenheit! Absolutely wonderful. We had the very agreeable problem of being too warm! Kristen M. and I even bought some delicious Haagen-Dasz ice cream, feeling very celebratory about the summery-ness of the day.

Once we’d had enough calories to spur us onward, we went into the Biblioteca. This place is essentially the equivalent to our Library of Congress in the States. It was pretty interesting, though not really what I was expecting. It was a lot more ordinary-looking than I thought it would be. And we actually didn’t even really see that many books, though we did get to see a display of some really cool facsimiles. There was a tiny book full of illuminations and miniatures, which I of course loved, as any of you who know about my English project last semester can very well guess. There were even two of Leonardo Da Vinci’s design books, which sported his famous backwards handwriting! And beyond these, it was nice to enjoy the quietness of the library (it’s a rare moment when I find myself in complete silence in Spain) to see all the old-fashioned rooms and such. We took a look at their old card-catalog system…that brought me back a few years, since I haven’t used one of those since about the third grade. And it made me think about how weird it is that I’m old enough to remember when libraries didn’t use an internet cataloguing system.

When our tour of the Biblioteca was through, we were starting to get rather fatigued, but we pressed on. Our last stop was a quick trip to the Museo de Antropología. We only had about an hour or so to spend here, since our library tour had run long (our tour guide was good, but she seemed to really enjoy talking…that’s okay, though, because we learned a lot). We were kind of glad that it wasn’t any longer, though; there wasn’t a ton to see there. What was there was fascinating, though! We saw the Dama de Elche, a statue which is apparently the most famous/recognizable piece of Iberian art. All that remains of it is the head and shoulders, though the experts think that it was originally a full-body statue. There were lots of other cool things in the museum, like some Grecian urns (which of course made me think of Keats), some incredibly detailed ivory sculptures – my favorite was the one of God kicking all the fallen angels down to hell…so intricate and intriguing – lots of old coins, a few statues, and other things of that sort. It was nice that there wasn’t a ton there, because we had the time to really look at things, which one doesn’t always get in big museums because one feels as though it’s necessary to see as much as possible in the little time there is, which ends up as a focus on quantity, not quality. That’s all right in its own way, but it’s nice to be able to take the time to really ponder what’s going on in a piece of art.

After the museum, it was time to head home. We took one last turn around the city to see a few more places of interest. Lauren and Kristen M. are so excited to go back this weekend and see some of those places up close and personal! They look astounding. We didn’t spend too long with this, though, since we were more than ready to get back to Pamplona to rest. The bus ride was rather long, but not too boring. We watched our second movie of the day (the first had been a cute Spanish chick flick called Mia Sarah…might have to look for that one on the web or something), which was a fun little Audrey Hepburn flick by the name of Sabrina. Besides the fact that the movie was really cute with lots of funny moments (many of which were due to over-acting), it was the first movie I’ve seen in English since before I left for Spain! That was exciting. It was nice to not have to strain to understand it the whole time. Don’t get me wrong, watching Spanish TV/movies is probably my favorite way to practice understanding the language, but it’s nice to have a break.

And now I’m off to try to remember what productivity is! We have tomorrow off from school, but there’s a lot to do today before our weekend trip to Madrid, Segovia, and Toledo. But more about that later. I’m so excited to see yet more wonderful Spanish cities!

Bellisima Barcelona

2010-03-15T13:28:00.000-07:00

I’m back from my adventure in Barcelona! There’s a lot to say about this beautiful city. Lots of images are crowding my head right now and I want to pick all of them at once, but let’s start from the beginning.

On Friday, we all skipped class to get a good start on the weekend. About 15 of us from the Pamplona campus (mostly girls) met the bus of about 17 students from the San Sebastian campus (mostly boys, and all from the engineering program). At the typical half-hour after the predetermined time (and after John – our group leader – proved his love for the bus’s microphone once again) we were on the bus and heading east to Barcelona. And one pleasant, though long, bus ride later, we were there! We were struck by the impressive architecture and overall richness of the place. Just like in Paris, everything was art. In any direction I looked, I saw sculptures and spires and statues. Oh my! And I couldn’t help but notice that there were more signs in Catalán than there were in Spanish. Catalán is the language spoken by many people in Cataluña, the province in which Barcelona is located. It’s basically Spanish, with French influences, so if you know Spanish you can generally understand what a sign in Catalán is trying to tell you without any trouble. Definitely intriguing, though.

The first thing we did was head to our hostel to unload. And what a hostel it was – despite the paintings of creepy children with huge eyes (from some recent exhibition, apparently) in the entryway, we were immediately impressed by the curvy marble staircase and the general posh-ness of the place. Our rooms were quite nice – the guys and girls stayed in different hostels (a requirement of Opus Dei, I think, which is the conservative Catholic organization that funds the university), so I was in a room with several other girls. The beds were comfy, and the room had a great view of a gorgeous building beside the hostel. The only issue was that there was only one toilet and one shower for about ten girls. But I woke up early to take a shower both mornings, so it worked out fine. Anyway, it was a great place – they served a delicious breakfast (with toast and cereal! I hardly ever get those here, so I was excited), and we felt safe and comfortable there the whole time. Which is more than I can say about our Paris hostel – but then, I think this one was a little more expensive. You get what you pay for sometimes, I guess.

Once we were settled in our hostel, we met in the gorgeous Plaza de Catalunya, where there were huge, beautiful fountains and some obligatory classical statues. Oh, and about a million and one pigeons. I’m beginning to really dislike those things – they’re so dirty and nasty, and they’re everywhere in cities. Sometimes a big flock of them would fly up suddenly, causing us girls to shriek and shield our eyeballs. Alfred Hitchcock, anyone (Okay, so I haven’t actually seen The Birds. But still.)? But I digress. After the boys came, we headed out on a little tour of the main parts of the city. We went to Las Ramblas, the main street in Barcelona, which has all sorts of vendors, a market, and lots of other interesting things to see. We were surprised to see lots of booths that were apparently miniature pet shops, sporting cages of birds, rabbits, and other little animals. Sooo weird. Not the souvenir I would choose, but whatever. There were also people displaying their talents in hopes of collecting money from passersby. These people were everywhere – way more than in Paris, even. However, this may have been because it was frigid and not very street-performer-friendly when we were in Paris. But it got to the point where, whenever I saw someone doing something out-of-the-ordinary, I could pretty much assume that they were doing it to get money. There were men making extremely life-like bird noises with their mouths, gypsy women wheedling away at people, and men throwing glow-in-the-dark objects high into the air to get people’s attention. And my favorite, the living statues; Las Ramblas was lined with people standing stock-still on platforms, wearing elaborate costumes and paint. I took a few pictures of them, enchanted. As a chronic fidgeter, I can’t imagine standing so still for twenty minutes, let alone hours. Some of them did move, though, in order to get into their character more. For example, a guy dressed up as Edward Scissorhands had Johnny Depp’s facial expressions down to a tee. It was definitely the coolest way to solicit tourists that I’ve ever seen.

We also went into the huge market for a bit while walking down Las Ramblas. They were selling every kind of food you could imagine – meat, gorgeous and exotic fruits (both fresh and dried), exquisite chocolates, and a dazzling array of colorful gominolas (gummy candies). I was sorely tempted to buy some of the candy, but I figured it was rather too rich for my blood, so I went for a delicious ice cream cone instead. We went to another plaza after that, with yet another pretty fountain and lots of cool buildings. There was a guy sitting in one of the upper windows, playing guitar and singing enthusiastically, but not very beautifully. You come across the most random people sometimes!

Next, we headed down to the port, where we saw the harbor and a ton of little boats. We crossed the gorgeous bridge and watched a big yacht coming in to dock. I even caught a couple whiffs of ocean air! Pretty soon, we were off to find some dinner. At the first bar/restaurant, the kitchen was closed, but we had something to drink – water for me, as I was feeling severely dehydrated at this point – and sat talking for a while. After waiting for another group leader (who we seemed to be waiting for during most of the trip), we left to find another bar, deeper within the city. It was really cool, because we were probably the only tourists in there, so it was very authentic. It was a seafood bar, and they had their specialty – octopus – lying around on the countertop in a bin, still intact. We all ordered our food and drinks and sat talking at a long row of tables in the back. I wasn’t very hungry and I had a sandwich with me, but it was one of those situations where I felt obligated to order something, and I couldn’t very well whip out my bocadillo (sandwich) in the middle of a restaurant, so I got some little breaded shrimp-like things. Still not sure what they were, but they were good. They were a lot more than I was expecting to pay, however, which made me kind of angry. And I paid even more because I felt I couldn’t say no to helping the group pay for a bunch of little things that we all went together on. And besides, I wanted some of the octopus pieces and the wine (which was delicious). But if there’s anything I’ve learned throughout my travels thus far, it’s that sometimes you just have to let things go. Sometimes you’re going to have to pay more than you thought you would or wanted to. Sometimes you’re going to miss out on something you wanted to see. Sometimes you’re going to run out of time before you get to everywhere you want to get to. But you just have to let it go.

After the bar, it was time for us tired travelers to go to bed, so we went to the hostel to get some rest for the long day on Saturday. And it certainly was quite a day. We started off with a tour of the old Gothic part of town. We had a tour guide who was the friend of one of the leaders, and I’m sure she did a great job, but I have no way of knowing because I could hardly hear a word she said the entire time – she was great at leading us around, but a normal speaking voice that doesn’t carry at all just didn’t work so well for a crowd of thirty kids who are sometimes talking amongst themselves. Oh well. We got to see an amazing Gothic cathedral, so I was happy. I wasn’t really paying attention when we walked in the door, so when I looked up to see a huge arched ceiling, a looong aisle, and a bunch of gorgeous stained-glass windows, I was taken completely by surprise! I think I almost liked it better than Notre Dame. It didn’t have the same sadness that seemed to hang over our dear Parisian cathedral, and the clean, elegant simplicity of the place was breathtaking. After the tour, we walked a little on Las Ramblas and down towards the port again, where some of us girls got crepes at a booth we had been eyeing the night before. Not as good as the ones we had in Paris, but still worth it. With the insides of our tummies sufficiently sugary, we basked in the sun for a while as we decided what to do next. I ended up going with a few of the girls to find the beach. It was a bit of a walk, but we made it! My first view of the Mediterranean Sea was a fantastic one. And I couldn’t resist taking off my shoes and wading in the cold, cold water. So worth it! I’ve learned to take full advantage of every opportunity I have to see the ocean or sea, because they don’t come around very often.

By this time, it was nearing lunchtime, so we went to find an inexpensive place to eat. I didn’t end up ordering anything because I was still kind of full from my crepe and I was sick of spending money just then, but I enjoyed the beautiful seaside view! After lunch, we took a different way back to the Plaza to meet the group, and we saw Barcelona’s smaller, red-brick version of the Arc de Triomf (Yes, I know that’s an “f;” that’s how they spelled it) on the way. From the Plaza de Catalunya, we were off to see the Sagrada Familia, the cathedral that Gaudí designed which is still under construction. As Maite said, we had to go, because not seeing it would have been like going to Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower. And it was certainly worth it. We didn’t go inside because they were closing soon and it costs 10 euro to get in. And we heard that there’s not a lot to see inside anyway, because it’s still being built. That was fine, though, the outside was impressive enough. However, I still can’t decide whether I liked it or not. It wasn’t so much beautiful as it was striking. It was too out there to be aesthetically pleasing, in my opinion – it looked like a Gothic Catalán cathedral and an aliens’ sculpture museum had a baby. Very weird. But I enjoyed seeing it, at any rate.

Next on the agenda was Gaudí’s house, also designed by him, called la Pedrera. It was also very different-looking, but cool. We had a hard time deciding whether or not to go in, since it cost us six euros, but we ended up going for it. I’m glad we did, because the inside was really neat. There’s not a single sharp corner in the entire place, and some parts were positively labyrinthine. It was cool to see the old furniture in the rooms, as well. And my favorite part was the roof – lots of smooth, twisty stone sculptures looking gorgeous in the light of the setting sun. And the view from the top was amazing! We could even see the Sagrada Familia sticking up in the distance.

After Gaudí’s house, we broke up into smaller groups, and I walked around Las Ramblas again with Megan, Lauren, and Lise. We got some snacks to eat at the very crowded Carrefour Express, and then headed back to the Plaza again. The group was planning to go to a bar called La Oveja Negra (The Black Sheep), but when Megan and I found out that we’d have to take the metro to get there because it was so far away, we decided that we would just go back to the hostel since we were pretty much dead on our feet at this point and weren’t very hungry anyway. We hung out and relaxed on my bunk for a bit, and then headed to bed for some much-needed rest. I slept like the proverbial rock…it kind of scares me when I sleep that deeply because it can be kind of tough to drag myself back out of it. Ah well, I daresay I needed it.

Sunday, our last day in Barcelona, was my favorite day of the trip! We took things a little slower, our only main stop being the Parque Guell, a park designed by – you guessed it – Gaudí. That guy went crazy on that town, let me tell you. Anyway, the park was by far the prettiest of his designs, in my opinion. It was full of mosaic walls and stone tunnels and palm trees and buildings that looked like they were straight out of Candyland. Of course, we all started taking pictures of everything. After a few minutes of this, Megan and I realized that it was going to take forever if we went with a big group, so we decided to go explore on our own. After a little direction from John as to how to get to the coolest parts, we were off. It was such fun to walk around and see all the outstanding architecture and gardens, enjoying the sun and the different types of music floating around the park – every time we rounded a bend, we heard something different: a mandolin, a classical Spanish guitar, a Chinese dulcimer, a digeridoo (which I have no idea how to spell), a reggae band, etc. So fantastic! And there were more of the ever-present living statues, of course.
After a while, we ended up chilling in the sun for a while on the rooftop of one of the structures, which had another wonderful view of the city. We could even see the Sea from up there! And the roof was surrounded by wavy mosaic walls – I’ve seen a picture of them on the back of one of my high school Spanish textbooks. Little did I know back then that I’d be seeing them in person one day! I was rather impressed by this.

A bit later, we met up with the group again here, and found out that it was time to split up for lunch. Megan and I had been thinking of going with a bigger group of girls, but we had already decided that we wanted to go to Las Ramblas one last time to look for souvenirs and gifts, since we hadn’t had time to do that before. And since we knew that waiting for the group would probably mean that we wouldn’t get the chance to do that, we struck out on our own once again. We knew (or should I say, Megan knew…I greatly envy her sense of direction!) where to go, and we got to our destination without any problems. We had about an hour and a half to make some very satisfying purchases (one of them being the most delicious gelato I’ve ever had in my life), and then it was time to go back to the hostel, load up on the bus, and head for home.

The bus ride was very pleasant, and I had a great time listening to music and my audiobook, and just zoning out and enjoying the beautiful sunset and landscape. It was funny – once it got dark, it reminded me of any other bus trip I’ve taken in the States, so I didn’t really feel like I was in Spain. But I didn’t really feel like I was in the U.S., either. I just felt like I was in no-place. It wasn’t unpleasant, really, but definitely a little bit strange. And after about five hours in the bus, we were all quite ready to be back to Pamplona. It had been a fantastic time, but I was excited to eat homemade dinner and crash in my own (well, sort of my own) bed.

What a great weekend! I’ve fallen in love with yet another wonderful Spanish city. Besides all the beautiful things in it, there’s just something about the atmosphere of the place that just makes you feel really nice inside. It’s almost relaxing, even though it’s a bustling city full of people. I’ll definitely never forget it. But I’m starting to use the same adjectives over and over again, so I’ll leave you with yet another novel, and the wish that you could have been there with me to experience such a great three days.

Laughing, Dancing, and Loving Life

2010-03-08T08:44:00.000-08:00

So I’ve been meaning to write on here for the last couple of days, but kept running out of time. But I find myself with a free afternoon, so here’s to a little pre-nap blogging! I should be doing literature homework, but oh well. Cortázar is just gonna have to wait.

Last week was alucinante (really awesome)! You already know about my grand adventure in the park and beyond. I’m afraid I waxed a bit maudlin during that post, but I’m sure you’ll get over it. Anyway, we’ll skip to Thursday – what a fantastic day! I kept feeling like I might explode, I was so happy. After our two classes, we Concordia gals (sans Lauren) went to Carrefour to buy some delicious chocolate to give to Lauren, because Thursday was her birthday! After lunch, we all met at the Café Florida to have café con leche and give Lauren her gifts. She loved them, and seemed staggered by the amount of chocolate now in her possession! She’ll be set for a while. And we had such a great time at the café – I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard! What with all the funny stories about host family shenanigans and with Skyla entertaining us with “the Classic” Skyla-expression (I’ll have to get a pic of that at some point…it may be one of those you-had-to-be-there things, though :-P), the other patrons were no doubt wondering what the waiter had slipped into the crazy American girls’ coffee. But we didn’t care; we were having way too much fun! We decided that we definitely need to get together as a group more often – it seems like we’re hardly ever all together, but whenever we are we have a blast.

After our coffee, we headed to dance. It was fantastic, as usual – it was a small group that night, and we always seem to have so much fun when that happens, probably because it’s more casual and we can switch things up if we feel like it. For example, instead of working on the tango, we learned the base for the salsa! That was such fun. It’s pretty similar to the cha-cha, so it wasn’t too hard to catch on. Some of the turns were a little tougher, though – we were struggling with one where the guy (or rather, in everyone but Ruben and Javi’s case, the girl who’s leading) has to put their arm out nearly straight to direct the girl around. This proved difficult for all of us, for some reason, and then Kristen M. decided to really get into the move by thrusting her arm out forcefully, Power-Ranger style, and singing part of the theme song under her breath…oh man. Lauren and I nearly died laughing!

When class was over, Lauren interviewed Ruben for her conversation class, and Kristen M. and I hung out with them since we were going to Lauren’s piso afterward. We all talked for a while, and had fun getting to know each other a bit better. After that, we girls went to Lauren’s and had some delicious tarta (cake) that Lauren’s host mom made for her. So yummy! Julia (Lauren’s host mom) even gave us a little alcohol to go with it, so that was fun. I had something that I believe was peach schnapps, or at least really similar. And I discovered (re-discovered? I’ve had it once before) that schnapps and I don’t get along so well – i.e., I get really red-cheeked and a bit dizzy. Something to remember for the future…Anyway, after a bit, Julia’s daughter Maribel and grandson Iñaki came over to visit, and we had a great time meeting them and talking with them. Maribel is one of the nicest people I’ve met here, and we all seemed to hit it off right away! And I was having one of those moments where I can speak pretty darn fast and well in Spanish. Always a great feeling :-) I’m hoping that will start to happen more often.

Friday was not too shabby either – I recited my poem for literature without any problems, so I was pretty proud of myself. And I got a fair bit of homework done in the afternoon. We seem to be getting a little more lately, but it’s still nothing compared to back home, so I can’t complain one bit. And it’s sort of nice to have something to apply myself to.

Friday evening was a bit of an adventure – Kristen M., Lauren, and I went to a play in which Nerea, our dance teacher, was one of the actresses. She had told us about it a week or so before, and we thought it would be fun to take in some Spanish theatre and go support Nerea. The play was called Lisistrata and was in the theatre in Ansoain, which is a little pueblo just to the north of Pamplona (I think it’s actually what I was seeing when I found that great view on my walk), so we went with Leire (pronounced “Lay-ray,” more or less) and Kova, two other friends from dance, who drove us there in Leire’s car. It felt so weird to be riding in a car – something I hadn’t done since mid-January, believe it or not. It felt kinda nice, though. However, riding on the roundabouts was a rather new experience; I’m just glad I don’t have to drive on them. Anyway, we found the theatre without much trouble and got our tickets (a bit expensive at 10 euro, but we figured it would be worth it). We also saw two other people from the dance class there – Javi and his girlfriend whose name I can’t remember – so that was kinda fun. After figuring out the hard way that the theatre seats were assigned (oops…) – a couple told us that we were in one of their seats, but they were nice about it – we found our spots and waited for the play to begin. Nerea had told us that it was a cabaret-type production, but other than that we weren’t really sure what to expect. The set looked cool, at any rate; it was a Greek theme and had a big curtain with the words “Club Acropolis” painted above it.
The play consisted of five actors – two men and three women – with two other guys who made up the band (one played guitar and piano and the other was on drums). The play was…rather raunchier than we were expecting. We’ll leave it at that. But it was still really fun – we understood most of what was going on, which was nice. It was apparently about soldiers who went off to war at the same time that some feminist ideas were cropping up, and the ensuing tomfoolery. Though we didn’t get some of the jokes - they say that you know you’re really fluent when you start understanding the humor in a foreign language…apparently we’re not quite there yet. But Nerea was such a hoot! We couldn’t believe some of the funny voices and mannerisms that she could affect. It was definitely worth the money just to see her. We laughed so hard! And we decided that Nerea looks like the Spanish version of Kirstie Allie sometimes. And she also has a phenomenal singing voice! That was cool. After the play, we were able to talk with her a little and get a picture with her. She seemed really happy to see us!

On Saturday, we did a bit of traveling – Lauren, Megan, and I headed to Olite for the day. Olite is a pueblo about half an hour from Pamplona by bus. Since it’s so small, it’s not necessary to go for more than a day to see the main attractions, so we decided it’d be a nice way to spend a Saturday. We saw the castle there, built circa 1400. It was so gorgeous! It reminded me of a Disney-ish castle from the outside. And there were lots of spiral staircases, towers, and courtyards inside. We had a great time exploring for over three hours. After a lunch of bocadillos, pastry, and a glass of wine in a cute little café, we headed to the Museo del Vino (Museum of Wine). Olite has a big vineyard, which I’m guessing is the town’s primary source of employment, and so they have a little museum dedicated to all things wine-related. It was really neat – the displays were beautiful and it was a lot of fun to learn more about wine. There was a room with displays about wine and the senses – it told all the different ways that wine affects our bodies, and had a section about the proper way to do wine tasting. There were even little candies in there to show the difference between sweet, salty, bitter, and sour, of which we took full advantage, of course. There were also rooms about the history of wine, different types of grapes, the planting, maintenance, and harvest process, and the methods for making wine. It was all so interesting! Definitely worth our time. And we got free bottles of wine at the end, so that was pretty exciting. After the museum, we were able to catch the 5:00 bus back to Pamplona. And we happened to meet a really nice Australian man when we were waiting for the bus to come. He told us that he’s teaching English for a semester in Bilbao but was visiting Pamplona and the surrounding area for the weekend. It was fun learning a bit about his family and his perspective on Spain. It just goes to show that you never know when you’ll meet someone really neat.

On Saturday night, we went out to celebrate Lauren’s birthday since we hadn’t been able to do so on Thursday. We had tons of fun! I went with Lauren, Megan, Skyla, Silvia, Valentina, and also Davíd and Rafael, who are two of Sivlia and Valentina’s Colombian friends. We also met up with Marion, Saskia, Eva, Ellen, and Janic (I hope I spelled his name right…) later on. Quite a group! We went to a couple three different bars and I decided that Bailey’s is my new favorite drink. Sooo yummy! We talked and danced and just generally had a good time. Most of the group was going strong long into the night, but Skyla and I were ready to leave by around two, so we walked back together. I slept quite well that night, though I only got about 5 hours or so. Ah well, that’s what these long afternoons are for, I guess.

Sunday was fairly chill; I went to church with Megan in the morning. It was pretty nice, and I like that church (and the fact that it takes me like, two minutes to get there), but the fact that the Sunday service is three hours long just seemed a liiiittle excessive to me. Especially since I was fighting sleep for most of it. I probably won’t be making it a weekly occurrence, but I’m glad it’s there when I want it.

And today was…well, Monday. I’ve been feeling none too well, so it’s time for me to take a nap and check out of life for an hour or two. But at least I’ve only got four days of class this week! I’m going to Barcelona for the weekend on a school excursion and we leave on Friday. Can’t wait! Everyone says that Barcelona is pretty much the most gorgeous place ever, so I’m so excited to see it for myself! If I don’t post before then, stay tuned for some lovely adventures in Barcelona :-)

It Is Refreshing, After Sitting for So Long in One Attitude

2010-03-03T12:06:00.000-08:00

I’ve been feeling extremely restless lately. It’s gotta be all this walking…it seems sort of ironic – walking a good 4 kilometers every day ought to make me more tired, not less. But now that I’m in good shape, my muscles are often positively screaming for more exercise. When I’m walking, I feel like the Energizer bunny, like I could just go and go and go forever. And when I’m sitting…imagine a wind-up doll that somebody gave a few good cranks to and then held in place with their hand on its head. The ensuing jitters are a good analogy for what I feel like sometimes.

Because of this, I decided to take a nice, long (about two and a half hours, in fact) walk today, not having much else to do. So, with umbrella and mp3 player in tow (I found the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack to be very fitting for the romantic rainy-ness) I set off. And oh man, was it a good decision! I’ve wanted to explore one of Pamplona’s parks, called the Parque de Taconera, for a long time now. It’s really close to my flat, and today I ran out of excuses not to go look around. I’m so very glad I went! The park is gigantic, and so astoundingly gorgeous! I only saw a small portion of it, because I got distracted…more about that in a moment. But what I did see, I loved! There are some of the obligatory old Spanish buildings (the park melts into Casco Antiguo further on), some lovely fountains and statues, and lots of shrubberies, hedge mazes, and such. And there are a ton of little areas with benches or playground equipment where people can go to chill or have a picnic or whatever they please. And there’s even an animal enclosure inside the park! Nothing very exotic, but it was fun to see the mountain goats, peacocks, various fowl, and gorgeous deer. I feel like this park is the kind of place you could spend all day in!

I didn’t go too deeply into the park since I was alone and didn’t want to get lost in all the twisty passageways. I’ll venture farther in another day. I stayed somewhat around the perimeter this time, partly because I remembered a friend of mine talking about this path that takes you all the way around the city, and I’m not sure why but I had it in my head that you can get to it from Taconera, and I wanted to look for it. The outer edge seemed to be a likely place to start.

Anyway, I rounded a bend on the path I was walking on, and there, right before my eyes, was one of the most wonderful views I’ve seen since coming to Europe! The path was perpendicular to a stone walkway lined by a fence. Just beyond the fence was a steep drop-off, and beyond that, a huge section of Pamplona that I never even knew existed was laid out before me! To me, it looked more typically “Spanish” than any other place I’ve seen in town, save Casco Antiguo. All of the roofs were that quintessential rusty red color that evidently appears on houses all over Europe, and there were a few spires and domes and mossy stone bridges. There was even a river, with some kayakers paddling serenely along. Some of the houses dotted the spectacular hills in the background, tucked in among the evergreens that cover the mounds. How lucky their residents are! And the hills themselves made me want to cry with happiness – those dark shapes with their drifting veils of clouds were better than the ones I dream about when the vast, endless flatness of the North Dakotan plains fill me with boredom and agoraphobia.

I kept walking along the path, which appeared to me to be an extension of the Ciudadela – same mossy gray stones, same slanted walls. The whole thing reminded me of the battlements of some old fortress – which may well be what they are. Along the way, there were little paths that lead to sections of the wall that sticks out a little farther (my inner medieval nerd is telling me that there is probably an actual name for these, but I can’t currently remember what it is), where you can get an even better look at the view. The path branches off onto bigger roads as well, and I took these when the fancy struck me. And along the way, I saw a few signs that said “Paseo Ronda,” with a map that gave me reason to believe I had indeed found the path around the city. I didn’t walk the entire length of it, but I did visit a few of its tributaries. One of them led me up to a higher road, on the right side of which were the most European-looking houses that you could wish to see – stucco buildings of different colors built so close to one another that they touch, with the occasional narrow alleyway or wrought-iron balcony. Another path brought me to a place I recognized – a section of the Encierro, which is the route on which those crazy San Fermín-celebrators run for their lives from a herd of angry bulls. I even saw a building or two that looked very much like castles – if I ignored the customary Euskerran (the language of the Basque people) graffiti that appeared here and there, I felt like I had stepped back in time a few hundred years. The beauty and character of the whole area just astounded me! I can’t wait to go back. It's experiences like this that make me feel as though I've stepped into a movie or a novel...sometimes I just can't help but ask myself, "Is this actually happening?" I can hardly fathom how blessed I am.

It still amazes me that I continue to find such gems as this part of the city all the time in Pamplona. It just goes to show that with a little daring (and a touch of boredom as well), there are so many adventures to be had, and some of them are just a few steps away from home!

Once Begun is Half Done

2010-02-28T12:24:00.000-08:00

Another week has gone by, so I daresay it’s blogging time once again!

I can’t believe this is the last day of February. Seriously. Where on Earth did it go? I’ve decided that February went much faster than January - which, in some ways, is sort of nice. I’ve had a number of very homesick moments this month. I want to have good talks with my parents. I want to tell traveling stories to and play Rock Band with my brother. I want to hug and laugh hysterically with my friends from home. I want to eat peanut butter! And mashed potatoes! And ketchup! Not at the same time, though. But really, it gets better when I remember that I only have about two more months here, and I know they’re going to fly by, so I need to enjoy them to the fullest. I mean, I’m in Spain, for pity’s sake. I only have a short time to enjoy being here (and I am enjoying it deeply!) before I have to go back to familiar things. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and home will still be waiting for me when I get back. Not that I know where home is anymore…I sometimes think that if I clicked my heels together like Dorothy, I have no idea whether I’d end up in Pamplona, Moorhead, or Wahpeton. But I guess I’m okay with being a nomad a little while longer.

Anyway, despite home sickness and random food cravings, this week has had a great deal of fun moments. And gosh, Monday seems like ages ago. The beginning of the week was fairly boring, but that’s usually how it goes. I think I’m going to have to make an effort to change that – there’s got to be something else that us Concordia girls (and perhaps some not-Concordia people) can do together during the week besides going to bars and discotecas, though that’s fun to do sometimes. At any rate, the early part of the week had its good points – I got to watch a cool show with my host mom that reminded me of a glorified version of American Idol (a bunch of different singers, with a band and sometimes even props and backup singers! It was slightly epic). It was the final episode, and they were selecting the best singer from a group of Spanish performers. The winner gets to go to Oslo to represent Spain and Eurovision in a worldwide competition, apparently. The guy who won was a cutie named Daniel Diges (I think that’s the right spelling) who sang a really pretty waltz song. And my host mom and I both wanted him to win, so we were happy! I encourage you to look up the YouTube video of the song (called “Algo Pequeñito”...I'm not sure what you'll find it under on YouTube, but I don't think it'd be tough to locate) if you feel so moved. It’s some fun stuff :-)

On Tuesday, I finally got to see a little Olympic skating, which I was pretty excited about. My Olympic-Games-watching skills this time around = Fail. To be honest, though, watching some of the other sports is fun too, but skating is really the only thing I care that much about as far as the Winter Games are concerned. They show some pretty weird sports, in my opinion…I mean really – what is the point of curling? And after a while, the ski jumps and luge runs all look the same to me. So I guess I’m not heartbroken that I’ve missed a lot of it. I think I'd rather watch futbol...mostly because ugly futbolistas do. not. exist. For real.

Also on Tuesday, we had one of the most fun dance classes yet – only five of us showed up so it was really chill, and for the first hour we learned more cha-cha moves. It’s so satisfying to finally be getting it down – dancing gets more and more enjoyable as we continue to improve! Then, for the second hour, when we were technically all supposed to be practicing the tango, all of us ended up sitting on the floor and talking! It was so much fun. And it was great speaking practice, which I never seem to get enough of. Kristen M., Lauren, and I ended up talking with Ruben for most of the time – he’s essentially the only guy in the class (there’s one other, but he hardly ever comes), and he’s really cool. He asked us about the differences between Spain and the U.S. and what we liked better in both. I was glad he did, because I really love those questions; they get me thinking about the comparisons and what I’m learning from the differences, more than I usually think about them. We also talked a bit about the different foods in Spain, and he told us how to make some of the desserts. Such fun! We may have missed out on an hour of dancing, but we didn’t care because we’d had just as good a time and learned a lot anyway!

On Wednesday night, things started to pick up a bit. We girls decided that we were all in desperate need of getting out of our respective houses and doing something fun together. We ended up going to a bar called Singular, right by the Ciudadela. It was so much fun! We all loved the atmosphere, and the fact that there was enough room to dance, which we all did with gusto. It was just so nice to have a great time with the gals and loosen up a bit (without the aid of alcohol, even :-P). I think that Singular is my favorite of the bars I’ve been to here! Definitely planning to go back at some point.

Of course, I was reeeeally tired the next morning, but I wasn’t too worried about it since I always have ample time for a nap here (not to brag or anything…haha), which I took full advantage of. I went out on Thursday night for a couple hours as well – nowhere near as late as on Wednesday, thankfully. That would’ve been a little ridiculous. It was fun, though – there was an open mic night/talent show for the intercambios at a bar called Long Island, and it was so cool to watch Lise play the fiddle song “Orange Blossom Special” on her violin and to see Ellen play guitar and sing with one of her Spanish roommates. They both did a great job!

Friday was simply lovely in many ways. The weather was amazing, for one - nearly 60 degrees, for those of you in Fahrenheit-land :-P. On my walk home, I was too warm! The fact that this happened in February is nearly unfathomable to me. I even went to the middle of the Ciudadela to study for a while by the fountain. It’s so much quieter in there – the big stone walls block out a lot of the traffic noise. And it was so peaceful to sit in the sun and look at the gorgeous old buildings. Gosh, I love that place! Later on that evening, I went to see Valentine’s Day (Historias de San Valentín) with Kristen and Lise. What a great movie! And we even understood what was going on…granted, the dubbed-over voices talked fairly slow, but it was still an ego boost to know that we could understand a movie that’s not in our own language and that we've never seen before! Woot. I guess I am learning, though it feels like I’m doing so very slowly sometimes. Oh, and Kristen and I bought popcorn, which tasted sooo great after not having had it for a couple of months.

This weekend has been low-key, as per usual. Which is just fine with me :-). I went to the mall, La Morea, with the girls yesterday to explore a bit. We found a couple fun little things (there was a jewelry store where everything was super cute and we were powerless to resist…), and then went to the grocery store (or rather, department store…there’s this huge, Wal-Mart-esque place inside the mall. The size of that place is staggering!) to get some much-needed sweets…we eat healthily here, which means that our sweet tooth (teeth?) are always clamoring to be satisfied. Kristen and I split a package of mini Haagen-Dasz ice creams…oh man. That was an excellent decision, let me tell you. Haagen and Dasz may replace Ben and Jerry as my boyfriends...lol!

Today has been mostly filled with homework and a good deal of putzing around. I’ve got a grammar test on Thursday that has me worried, so you can bet I’ll be hitting the books a great deal. Just as soon as I can get myself motivated. Really though, I’ve got to do my best! Now that I have only four classes, I can’t afford to do poorly in any of them. But if I get going on it, I should be okay. It would be a lot easier, though, if Spanish pronouns weren’t the devil’s children…ugh.

The weekend has raced by, but I think I’m ready to tackle a new month in Spain. As ready as I’ll ever be, anyway!

Settling In

2010-02-20T17:16:00.000-08:00

This week has been pretty low-key, but I feel like blogging, so if you get bored, well…whatever. Come back next week :-P

For the last few days, I’ve just been enjoying the routine and getting to know Pamplona a bit better. After the wonderful but exhausting Paris experience, I’ve been very content to chill out at home. Especially since, as I think I’ve said, I am not nor am I likely to ever be into the party scene. This week especially, going to a noisy, smoky bar to spend money on drinks and possibly get hit on by random guys sounded like the very last thing I wanted to do. And since that seems to be the only way to hang out with a group of friends, things have been quiet for me this week. And if you know me at all, you’ll know that that suits me just fine :-)

I have done quite a bit this week, though, all things considered. I finished the interview part of our project for Civilization and Culture class. I was sooo not looking forward to it because our prof kind of wanted us to survey random people on the street, which sounded way too scary to me. I mean, the people here are nice, but I’ve always hated interviewing with the passion of a thousand fiery suns…and the fact that I had to do it in Spanish with people I didn’t even know made it sound even worse. Thankfully, though, it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be (that seems to be the way it always goes with me) – I just ended up handing out the typed-out surveys to some people in the cafetería, and they were quite willing to help me. Still made me nervous as heck, but I got over it. And I got my host sister to do the last one, so that was easy. I’m still glad that’s over with, though!

I’ve also done a little bit more exploring – I went shopping with a couple of the girls yesterday and found some fun little things. And today I was determined to find a pair of boots – both of my other pairs leak now (one pair is cheap suede, and I’ve walked approximately 12 million miles in the other pair so they’re not what you could call watertight anymore), and my host mom said, “You need to get some boots that won’t get your feet wet when it rains!” And I said, “You know what? You’re right.” Besides, what woman needs an excuse to buy another pair of cute shoes? Not this one. So anyway, this led me to look around Casco Antiguo a little bit. By myself. And I didn’t even get lost! Granted, I have been there a few times now, but if you knew how confusing and twisty those streets are, you’d know what an achievement this is for me. Didn’t find the boots there, but I did find some on another street. So, I’m pretty much a legit European now, with my leggings and my boots and my long shirts. Yep.

Also, lately I’ve been enjoying my current state of physical fitness. At home, I had to exercise several times a week to stay in reasonably good shape. But here, I can do that just by living. Like Lauren said, at home we ate because it’s fun; here, we eat to survive. What with the healthy diet, ridiculous amount of walking, and lack of snack times, I’m feeling pretty darn skinny! Although I probably have the beefiest calves this side of the Atlantic, from walking up and down all these hills. For real. But hey, it’s useful, I daresay.

Another thing I’ve been noticing is that my host mom and I have started to become more comfortable around each other (it’s taken me long enough…but then, I’ve never been a fast mover), which has been so nice. One day she said to me “You should talk some more! You’re always so quiet, and you need to practice to learn.” And she’s right – I do practice Spanish with friends and at school quite a bit, but she only sees the side of me that’s still struggling to conjugate verbs correctly and who makes really dumb mistakes, since I don’t talk a lot at home. For some reason, I find it way harder to talk to my host mom in Spanish than with other people. Maybe it’s because I’m trying not to make mistakes, or that I don’t know if it would be rude or too personal to ask this or that question, or that I just can’t think of a good topic. But anyway, after she said that, I started making a conscious effort to elaborate more when she asks me things and even (gasp!) volunteer information. And from that point, it seems like someone flipped a switch somewhere and we got a lot closer. She asks me a lot more details about what I’m up to, my classes, stuff about my family and home, etc. And I’ve been telling her a lot more. It’s been great – it makes me feel like I actually am learning how to speak at least a bit better in Spanish! And it’s made it more fun to hang out with my host mom. She was so cute today – we were eating dinner and watching TV, like we usually do, and the only thing we could really find to watch was Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I like that movie well enough, but my host mom isn’t really into action movies and said it was “un rollo” – which basically means sucky. So funny! And then we were talking about Brad Pitt – she told me “You know, I don’t think Brad Pitt is so attractive. His face is too young-looking. Angelina Jolie looks like she’s older than him. I like George Clooney better; he seems more manly to me.” Loved that! And, as I told her, I agree with her :-D

Also today, I finally got to go to church! My friend Megan invited me to go with her to the Saturday service at an Evangelical church, which, to my delight, is a block from my house! I had no idea it was even there. It’s funny how many things you can find just by going down a new street here. Anyway, it was a cool experience. It was nice to go to a church that wasn’t Catholic – not that Catholic churches are bad, but it’s not what I grew up with so I’m really not familiar with how they work. It was still pretty different (a bit more on the charismatic side), but more like the traditions I’m used to. It felt so good to sing praise songs and listen to the sermon – I felt so at home! And it was really neat to sing in Spanish (and just to sing, period – it’s been quite some time)! Thank goodness they had the words playing on TV screens; otherwise I wouldn’t have had a clue about any of them.

Another interesting moment was during the moments that were sort of like the “sharing the peace” times at a Lutheran church. The lady sitting next to Megan and I turned to us once and said to us “Nothing is impossible with God. God has saved you!” (in Spanish, of course) and kissed us on both cheeks. Another time, she said something to the effect of, “God has changed us, do you believe that?” and gave us a hug. It was definitely different, and we weren’t really sure how we were supposed to reply, but it was still kind of neat.

And I was pretty proud of myself – I managed to understand the majority of the sermon! Not as easy as it sounds, since I have to pay attention every second when I’m listening to a big chunk of Spanish. If I zone out for the smallest moment, I get lost. And since I have the attention span of a goldfish, I felt pretty accomplished for staying with it for so long. The service was a little longer than we would have liked – it was only supposed to go from 6:00-8:00, but it ended up going until ten to 9:00. We were ready to get out of there by the time it was over, but it was still a neat experience. I’m hoping to make it a habit to go there! I definitely need the spiritual refreshment, I know that much.

Well, I think the heat has gone off in the piso and I’m getting cold and sleepy. Time to go to bed and sleep late tomorrow morning! Hoping for another good week. I’m having a hard time believing that it’s nearly the end of February already!

Paris, Part Deux

2010-02-15T11:53:00.000-08:00

The next day was our trip to the Chateau de Versailles! The day before, we realized that we had pretty much seen what we wanted to see in the city, and since we had been wanting to check out Versailles but weren’t sure if we’d have time (it’s basically a day trip, since it’s 30 or 40 minutes from the city center and is gigantic). So when we realized that we had plenty of time, we decided to go for it. We took a cheap train (and got to sit on the upper deck!), which got us to the Chateau area pretty quickly. When we got there, we thought we’d have to pay around 15 euro for tickets, and that just to see the palace itself. But when we showed our student visas in hopes of getting a discount, they told us that we could go in, free of charge, to see every part of Versailles that we wanted! And then, we decided we would go pay to get audio-guide headphones that tell the history of the palace as you walk, since we didn’t have to pay for tickets, but again, they were free! The guy said, “Are you under 26? No problem.” So we were super happy after all this. This trip has taught us that it apparently pays to be young! And it got better from there – the palace was absolutely dazzling. The sumptuous rooms were covered in gold, rich fabrics, portraits, and beautiful paintings and architecture on the ceilings. And the Hall of Mirrors was something I’ve always thought it would be cool to see, and it definitely didn’t disappoint. Wandering around that luxurious place and hearing about its history was one pleasant way to spend a morning, that’s for sure.

We went to eat lunch after seeing the palace – there was nowhere really to eat in Versailles that wasn’t a snooty-looking restaurant, so we headed down the street to yet another McDonald’s to eat our pack lunches, and we bought a small item each so it looked like we belonged there. After that, we went back to the palace grounds to brave the cold and see the gardens. The grounds were very beautiful, though we couldn’t help thinking that it would have been a lot more pleasant to come in the summer when the fountains are going and all the plants are growing. Also, I lost my hat along the way, which I was sad about, until we decided that we were super thankful that it wasn’t something important/irreplaceable that had been lost. Anyway, we marveled at the sheer size of the place as we walked the long pathway to Marie Antoinette’s personal chateau, the Tairon. It was a bit anticlimactic after the extravagance of the castle, but it was still very beautiful, and it was really fun to imagine what it would have been like to be Marie Antoinette –sweeping along those hallways and garden paths in huge hoop skirts, entertaining friends in the pretty salons, having private balls in the great hall, and waking up to the sunrise every morning in the huge, curtained canopy bed. And the pink marble columns and delicate furniture with pretty colors and patterns made us think that this is definitely where a classy chick like Marie would hang out, though we wondered why she would want to spend so much time so far away from her husband like that. But then, I guess that’s how those arranged marriages went sometimes. I still wish I could remember more about that history! I’ll have to read up on it, I guess.

By late afternoon, we decided we’d seen all we wanted to see of Versailles, so we headed back to Saint-Michel to look around. We found a great store called Monoprix, which has pretty much everything, near as we could figure, including a grocery store where we bought more treats and some milk. Next, we decided it was high time for dinner, and went to a pizza/pasta place that we’d liked the looks of earlier. We knew it would be a little pricey, but we decided we could afford to splurge since we hadn’t paid a dime for Versailles. And oh, my gosh…eating at that restaurant was a fantastic decision – the atmosphere was so cozy and wonderful, and we had the best pasta of our lives there (I really should stop using so many absolutes…but it’s true!)!! I even decided to order some crème brulèe, which was also extremely delicious. And I bet not too many other people can say that their first crème brulèe experience was in Paris, France! And after our longish metro ride, we had some of the treats and a lot of the milk that we’d bought, which continued the gastronomic ecstasy. We were so happy after that we couldn’t stop laughing, neither on the metro, nor when we were getting ready for bed. The people around us probably thought we were crazy, but we didn’t care. Our tummies were pretty much in love with us by that point, and we were brimming with happiness! What a wonderful night.

The next day was our last day in Paris. We had planned on going shopping at the mall at Les Halles since we didn’t really have anything else we wanted to see, but found out that the mall is closed on Sundays, which was rather disappointing – we didn’t even think about that possibility. We heard that there are still shops open around that area, though, so we checked out of our hostel, checked our bags into the secure room for the day, and decided to go anyway. When we got there, there really wasn’t too much open, but we did find a couple of fun things. We eventually made our way to Champs d’Elyseés once again, and discovered that we were right in thinking that there would be more places open there. Apparently that’s one of the few parts of town that’s open on Sunday, because the streets were packed with people – it was kind of intimidating to look down the street and see this huge, undulating crowd of shoppers. But we braved the mob and ended up going into quite a few places. Lauren found the cute pair of boots she’d been wanting, and I found a cool shirt to wear with leggings, for surprisingly cheap, considering where we bought them. And I’m excited to be able to say, “I got this on Champs d’Elyseés!” hehe :-) We also had a fun time checking out the swankiest, most expensive drugstore you can imagine! I felt like I didn’t belong in there, but it sure was interesting to see all the beautiful and/or intriguing things.

After returning to Saint-Michel yet again, doing a bit more looking around, and getting food for dinner and the ride home as well as some last-minute treats at Monoprix, we went back to the hostel to use the kitchen one last time, get our bags, and get ready to go. Even though we’d had the time of our lives, we were more than ready to go home. We were in a weird state of mind – we missed somewhere, but weren’t really sure if it was Paris, Pamplona, Concordia, or our real homes. It sort of felt as though we didn’t really belong anywhere, or didn’t really know where home was. But then, we decided that home is wherever we are. At this nomadic stage of our lives, it’s best to just determine to feel at home in many places.

After a dinner of some yummy microwaved pizza and some more milk, we got our bags, freshened up a bit, and got on our last metro ride of the trip. We got to the train station with plenty of time to spare and got on our train as soon as the platform number was posted. We were excited to see what first class would be like (it was cheaper to go late at night in a sleeper car, for some reason, so we were like, “Why not?”), and it was definitely kind of cool. We each got our own little top bunk with plenty of space for luggage, our own light switch, a little sleeping bag and pillow, a water bottle, and a little pack with earplugs, Kleenex, and a wet-wipe inside. I felt sorta high-class :-P Also, the couple that was in the same compartment with us were really nice, and the lady made sure that we knew how to get in and out and was kind of motherly to us, even though she didn’t speak much English. We appreciated her so much, and were really glad that she made such an effort to communicate with us. And we were excited that we had from 11:00 at night to 7:00 in the morning to sleep! I found it pretty easy to fall asleep (even though I was sleeping in my clothes), what with the comfy bed and the rocking motion of the moving train. It was really disorienting, though – the man in our compartment shut the shade before we left, so I couldn’t even really tell which direction the train was moving in, only that it was moving. So I had a couple of claustrophobic moments, but I made it. And I did get some sleep, which made things look a lot brighter in the morning than they would have. At around 7:30, we got off at Irun, and then caught our TOPO pretty soon afterward. When we arrived in San Sebastian, there was a bus ready and waiting to leave right at 9:00 to take us to Pamplona, so we were glad it worked out so perfectly. A short bus ride later, we were back in Pamplona, happy to hear Spanish instead of French being spoken all around us and to see familiar places! It was a great trip, but it was definitely time to come back.

And so, to wrap up this novel :-P, I have a few conclusions about our adventure to Paris. About the city itself – I love Paris and don’t regret a single second or a single penny that I spent there, but I am not a fan of the people; they just make you feel much less safe than other places, and I’ve lived too long in the Midwest to be able to tolerate the higher amount of rudeness that one encounters. But then, for every rude or unpleasant person we ran across, there was a kind, helpful person who was there for us when we needed them. So, it evens out in the end.

And as Lauren and I talked about on the way home, there are some things that can be drilled into you but that you never truly learn until you figure it out for yourself. One life lesson that we learned through this experience is that God loves us so much and is always there for us – there were so many serendipitous moments that proved this – the fact that getting to and from Paris went extremely smoothly and easily, our perfect timing again and again with our travel connections, the many times when we had to pay less than we thought we would, the random people who helped us just when we needed it, finding the stores that had the things we needed (or even just wanted), getting amazing roommates after the first night, and so many other things. Another lesson is that less is more – it’s great to travel sometimes, but we couldn’t handle doing it all the time; we’ll be content to stay in Pamplona for some weeks now, I wager. A third lesson is that sometimes you have to be tough and not let people mess with you, but that’s much easier to do with a friend. Two people who trust each other are unstoppable! And finally, we learned that we really are confident, independent, capable women, and we are able to go to a new country where we don’t know the language and get by just fine, keeping ourselves safe and sound all the while.

So basically, I can’t imagine a better trip. We experienced so much, walked about a squillion miles (just when I thought my legs couldn’t get any beefier…), learned some important things about ourselves and the world, and just plain had a fantastic time. We made some memories that I know I won’t forget for as long as I live. The only things that would have made it better would have been warmer weather and family members to share our experiences with! I thank God for protecting us and going with us every step of the way on this wonderful trip, and I’m so glad I went. It was a once in a lifetime experience!

Adventures, Life Lessons and Pastries - French Style

2010-02-15T11:51:00.000-08:00

Wow. These last few days have been some of the most amazing of my entire life! And it’s probably going to take me a few pages to tell you all about it, but hang in there – it’s gonna be a good story.

My and Lauren’s trip to Paris began on Wednesday, February 10. We got up, got on the bus to San Sebastian, and did our best to forget about how much school we were going to be missing. Our excitement was mounting all the way to the Euskotren station, where we boarded the TOPO train to Hendaye. We knew our trip was off to a good start when we got to the station without trouble and hopped on the next train, which left approximately five minutes after we got to the station. After a few stops at stations that had unpronounceable Basque names, we were excited to be across the French border in Hendaye! We got to the TGV train station with over two hours to spare. It got a little boring after a while, but we just read Cosmo (in Spanish!) and decided that we would far rather have to wait than be rushing to make our connections. Finally, our train to Paris arrived, and after a bit of confusion as to which direction we needed to go, we were sitting on our train car, brimming with excitement. We were the only ones in our car for a while (it was a smaller one, the kind with seats that face each other with tables in between), so we were naively holding onto the dream that we would have the car to ourselves for the trip. Alas, it was not to be – we made a few stops and the car filled up pretty quickly. But the two most attractive men in the car sat across from us, so we decided we were okay with it :-P

Five hours later, we were starting to get a little stir crazy, and were more than ready to stretch our stiff knees and find our hostel. When we got to the train station, we found out that it connects right to the metro, and since we’d written down the metro line and stop beforehand, we went to buy a book of ten metro tickets and got onto our line. We had to ask for help to find the street that our hostel was on, but a really nice lady showed us where it was on her map and we found it with no trouble after that. And we found out that it was really close to the metro stop, which proved to be super convenient for the rest of the trip. That night we pretty much just checked in and got settled, did some journaling, and went to bed. The hostel itself was pretty good – a little old and the beds were reeeeally shaky (though comfy), but the amenities were nice, and it met all of the needs we had there – but our roommates that night were a little interesting; it was us and three guys. They didn’t seem scary, but we chose the top bunks, slept with our luggage on our beds, and told them that we were from Canada (a tip we heard from my parents – a good way to steer clear of the stigma of being an American in France), just to be safe. Ironically, two of the guys in the room, who were the first people we used our Manitoba ruse with, were actually from Canada in real life. Thankfully, though, our cover was never blown. And all three men moved on the next day, which we were glad for, especially since the third dude decided it would be a good idea to stay in the shower room for two hours. I kid you not. This necessitated our use of the extremely tiny showers downstairs, but whatever. They were hot, at least.

The next morning, we were off on our first day of Parisian adventures! After a fantastically starchy breakfast at the hostel, we headed off to la Fontaine de Saint-Michel (a cool fountain with a statue of Saint Michael stomping on Lucifer) for our free tour at 11. We found it in time (after asking for help again) and were excited to see that Kristen and Lise were already there, waiting with the accumulating group. After a long day of travelling to a new city, it was great to see some familiar faces! While we waited, we talked with some of the other people in the group and made friends with a Chinese girl named Quay (I think this is the correct spelling…it’s pronounced Hway, in any case). Pretty soon our tour guide, an extremely cool and energetic British dude named Colin, gathered us up and introduced himself, and then we were off to explore Paris. He showed us Notre Dame, the river Seine, the Palace of Justice (one of the only places in Paris which bears bullet scars from WWII), the Jardin de Toulleries (gorgeous fountains and statues), the Egyptian obelisk (don’t remember the name of the courtyard it was in, but it stands in the place where they used to guillotine people during the revolution), the fountain into which Anne Hathaway throws her cell phone at the end of The Devil Wears Prada (my To-Do-When-I-Get-Home list now includes re-watching that movie), the president’s house, and several statues and other buildings along the way. We also saw the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe looking all foggy and mysterious in the distance (it was snowing for much of that day). And we even got to stop for a lunch break at Starbucks! It was so nice to warm up and eat one of the seemingly endless sandwiches that my host mom packed for me (seriously, this woman is awesome), and I had the best vanilla latte that I have ever had. In my life. Seriously.

Our fantastic tour ended at the famous street Champs d’Elysées, so Lauren, Kristen, Lise, Quay, and I decided to head down it toward the Arc de Triomphe, which is at the end of the street. Since the Arc de Triomphe is so big, we thought it was a lot closer than it actually was. Thankfully, Champs d’Elysées is one of the most famous places to shop in the entire world, so there were plenty of stores to check out along the way, even though we were afraid to touch anything, because this street is also known for selling the creations of some of the world’s most well-known designers. It was so cool to see places like Louis Vuitton, Dolce & Gabana, etc. Finally, we made it to the end of the street and got to the Arc de Triomphe. It was stunning with its amazing stone architecture. And the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, whose place is marked by the Eternal Flame, was definitely worth seeing. It didn’t take us long to see all there was to see here, though, so we headed down the other side of Champs d’Elysées (at which point Quay left the group and continued on to meet a friend) and stopped in the McDonald’s for a while to warm up and eat again. McDonald’s is way ritzier in Paris than in Minnesota, let me tell you. They even sell beautiful French pastries and fancy coffee!

After that, we headed to a souvenir shop (these are everywhere in Paris) that Lauren and I had liked the looks of earlier. It took us a while to find it again, but find it we did, and we bought a few things to take home. Next, we headed to the Musée d’Orsay, which holds many realist and impressionist paintings, some by none other than Van Gogh, Monet, and Renoir. We’d found out that this museum is open until 9:45 on Thursdays, so we decided it would be a good way to end the day. We were right – we had been getting colder and crankier by the minute at that point (or maybe that was just me…), so seeing the beautiful paintings and statues in a serene and gorgeous atmosphere was just what we needed right then. We loved the paintings and had a good time taking pictures of ourselves doing silly poses in front of the artwork. People probably thought we were crazy, but it was great fun and we were beyond caring at that point. We had to take our minds off of our aching feet somehow!

After the museum, we all headed back for some much-needed dinner. We were having trouble finding somewhere to eat that didn’t cost an arm and a leg at that time of night, and Lauren and I eventually ended up heading back to Saint-Michel, since we remembered seeing another McDonald’s there and decided that hamburgers and fries sounded like the most delicious thing in the world right then. When we got to Saint-Michel, we couldn’t remember where exactly the McDonald’s was, but we went in the direction that looked familiar. Just when we were despairing of its existence, we turned the corner, and there was McDonald’s, gleaming brightly in front of us! That was a beautiful moment. I can honestly say that I’ve never been more excited to see a McDonald’s in my entire life! We exclaimed for joy and went in. I ordered a burger, fries, a coke, and a salad (Not having had vegetables in a good 24 hours, the salad may have been my favorite part). And oh man, it was heaven. We even went back for round two, at which point I ordered a cheeseburger and a McFlurry Definitely the most delicious McDonald’s experience of my life! We spent a good bit there, and it may be sort of lame to eat at McDonald’s in France, but we regret nothing!! So with our tummies happy and our feet about ready to fall off, Lauren and I headed back to the hostel to rest up for another big day. To our further delight, we found out that our new roommates – a guy and a girl from Portugal, a girl from South Korea, and another guy from I don’t know where who are all studying English in the UK – were really nice, and that we didn’t need to worry about a thing in that department. What a blessing!

The next morning, we got ready for another big day. After grabbing some extra bread at breakfast to make sandwiches with (we had to be sneaky about it because the server lady didn’t like the fact that we were taking more. But then we saw a bunch of other people with multiple bread rolls and then we decided to stop worrying about it), we headed to the metro once again. Our first stop was the Louvre, which we got into for free because we’re studying in the European Union! So fabulous. Anyway, the Louvre was without a doubt my favorite part of the entire trip. I can’t imagine that there is a bigger or more beautiful museum in the world! They say it would take 64 days to see everything there is to see in the Louvre, and it’s chock full of everything from realist paintings to statues to Egyptian archeological finds. We’d had our fill after a couple of hours, though – one can only absorb so much at once, even when it’s something as fantastically gorgeous as the Louvre. But we saw so many wonderful things, my favorites of course being Winged Victory, Venus de Milo, and the one and only Mona Lisa. My other favorite part was the ceilings – they’re full of beautiful paintings and sculpture that defy description. We also both loved a room that was full of statues – the ceiling was mostly glass and it let in the most beautiful sunlight. The serenity of the beautiful white marble statues and the quality of the light made our hearts happy :-)

After finishing up at the Louvre and having a quick lunch, we headed off to Notre Dame. I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed at this point, and rather unnerved by the…interesting…people one sees on the streets of Paris, so I had a hard time absorbing it, but it was very beautiful. The pipe organ and stained glass windows were so gorgeous! I tried to take pictures, but like most photos, they don’t do any justice to the real thing.

After that we headed to the neighborhood around the Eiffel Tower. I was starting to run out of steam, but we got some delicious pastry at a patisserie and some coffee at Starbucks, and that helped to perk me up a bit. We did a little planning there and then explored the area a little. We were happy to see that the neighborhood had an Ed, which is apparently the cheapest grocery store chain in Paris – we decided we would definitely be coming back there later, since we were running low on bocadillos (sandwiches).

When we were done looking around, it was time to climb up the Eiffel Tower! We waited for a while to buy our tickets and then began the ascent – we decided to take the stairs and save a few euro. It was frigid outside (not so bad by Minnesota standards, but it doesn’t feel too nice when you’re out in it for a long time and are a couple hundred meters above the ground), so the walk up was pretty arduous before long. We were chilled to the bone and our legs were noodles by the time we got back down, but it was worth the view and the experience. We even got to see a beautiful sunset from the 2nd floor!

We then took a few great pictures and headed back to the neighborhood we’d been in before to do a little shopping before the tower’s light show. We got some provisions at Ed (along with copious amounts of French chocolate), stopped at a cute store or two, and looked around for a place to eat after the light show. And we learned that you shouldn’t take too long looking at the menu of a restaurant outside, because a waiter might sneak up behind you and stare you down, wondering what kind of weird foreigners are loitering in front of his restaurant. Anyway, we got back to the Eiffel Tower a little before 8:00 to wait for the show. By this time, I had absolutely nothing left. I was cold, tired, and dreadfully homesick. For some reason, as I was sitting there I felt a desperate need to go home – to my real home, not Pamplona – and see my family, and knowing that I couldn’t do that just made the feeling worse. But thankfully Lauren was there to give me a hug and remind me that this isn’t going to last forever – there may be homesick moments, but we’ll be home again before we know it so we need to enjoy this time while we have it. Anyway, the light show finally started, and it was gorgeous and blessedly short. After a few minutes of watching lights race up and down the tower, we left to get our frozen bodies into a restaurant. We had some delicious pizza with ham and mushrooms, which left us feeling a lot better. By the time we got back to our hostel, I was ready to fall over…I don’t remember a time when I was more exhausted. It was an incredible day, but boy, did I sleep well that night!

One Month Down

2010-02-07T03:44:00.000-08:00

As of February 6 (yesterday), I have been in Spain for a month. How crazy is that? I can hardly believe that, one month ago, I was getting on a bus from Madrid to Pamplona, trying not to have a panic attack, or something equally drastic. It's encouraging to think about how far I've come since then! I've found my way around the city quite well, established a routine for the most part, made some friends, and learned a ton! Still working on the language thing, but it's getting a little easier.

This week has been fairly eventful. Thank goodness for my journal, or I'd never remember it all to tell you! The beginning of the week started out slowly, as they seem to do here. My days are even less full now that I've dropped translation class (still hoping I made the right decision there...making choices is still not my strong point), so I bummed around a lot on Monday and Tuesday. Things started picking up by Wednesday, however, right at the point where I was starting to get a little crazy from boredom.

Lauren had heard from her host mom that Wednesday, February 3rd, is the festival of San Blas, and that there is a nifty little market in Casco Antiguo. Julia (Lauren's host mom) said it was worth going to look at and take pictures, so Lauren, Julie, Maja, Skyla, and I went to check it out for a while. San Blas is the patron saint of people with sore throats, apparently (which I thought was really random and amusing in its specificity :-P), though there didn't seem to be anything relating to head colds at the festival, that we could see. There were a bunch of stalls there, all selling the same thing - yummy-looking sweet bread and a couple of kinds of candy. We couldn't figure out why there were so many stalls if there was no variety among them (how do you decide who to buy from?), but it was interesting to see. We even got to try a couple of samples, which were quite delicious. Julie and Maja left not long after this because they needed to get some food for meals at the regular market, but the rest of us stuck around Casco Antiguo for a little while.
Also, on the Dia de San Blas, the cathedral on Calle San Nicolas is open, so we decided to go inside. The place is gorgeous, and we got a lot of cool pictures. We even got into the balcony and saw the most beautiful pipe organ I've ever seen! It had a bunch of gold and sculptures on it and was painted with some really neat designs and pictures.
Another interesting fact about San Blas - if you bring food items, there is a priest that will bless them for you. We didn't witness this, unfortunately, but later in the day my host mom brought our bag of little muffins and had them blessed. I haven't tried them yet to see if blessed muffins taste better than normal ones, but I hope to someday soon :D

After we'd gotten our fill of the San Blas festivities, Lauren and Skyla and I went shopping for a little while. I found a gorgeous (purple!) scarf at a chino store (can't remember if I've mentioned these, but they're the have-all stores...quality is a little sketch, but they're good for small items, and prices are great) and one of those long shirts that are super popular here (generally worn with boots and leggings). It's sort of funny...I never cared that much about having the latest fashion back home; I just wear what I like. But here, I feel compelled to become a fashion conformist! Weird. Just one of the many unexpected things I've experienced.

That night, I was invited to go out to a bar/Marengo's. The bar is called La Habana, and they have reeeeally good mojitos (pretty much my new favorite alcoholic drink, no joke). Also, on Wednesday nights, they apparently have salsa dancing lessons, though we arrived after those were over. However, everyone there was raring to go as far as dancing went, it seemed, and us girls were asked to dance several times. I only did so once, with a man who was old enough to be my father :-P But he was really nice, and he taught me how to dance the merengue, which is nice and easy - perfect for a coordination-challenged person like me. And I had lots of fun watching the others - a couple of the intercambio girls can dance the salsa like pros!

After that we headed to Marengo's - this was my first experience at a discoteca, since we have nothing like that at home, really. I liked it, for the most part. It was super noisy, but there were a lot people I knew there, and the music was cool. After dancing for a while, I decided that it was getting way too late for a school night, so I headed back. I'm lucky enough to live two blocks away from Marengo's, so it was a nice, quick walk home, and it was well-lit with no one sketchy wandering the streets (read: Mom and Dad, you don't need to worry :D). My host mom was still up when I got back and said she was really worried - I must not have explained my plans for the night fully enough. So I felt really bad. In the future, I'm going to make sure to tell her when I plan to be out really late.

The next day in class, we were all pretty wiped, but we made it. And then, Thursday evening was our (Lauren, Lise, Kristen, and I) first Latin dance class! It was pretty cool. There are only two men in the class, so many of us women have to take the guy's part in the dance, but we kind of expected this. And it was a lot of fun! We've begun learning the cha-cha and the tango. I couldn't get the turn move down for the cha-cha, which of course made me feel really awkward, but whatever; it was only the first day of class. I did rather better with learning the base for the tango, even though that one is apparently harder (I think the styling is going to be the hard part, not the base), so that made me feel a bit more confident.

Friday was quite interesting as well. And long! Besides the fact that I woke up with a terrible crick in my neck (I still can't turn my head all the way), it was a fun day. Or should I say, evening. I went out with Valentina, Silvia, and Marco - my friends from Italy. Marco of course speaks English, but Silvia feels more comfortable with Spanish and Valentina doesn't speak English much at all, so this forced me to practice Spanish, which I was glad for. Anyway, we went to Casco Antiguo and had the obligatory pintxos and beer at Bar Burgales (I think the bartenders are starting to recognize us). After that we wandered around Casco Antiguo for a while and then headed to Bar Ensayo, where we knew a lot of intercambios would be hanging out. We got a little lost on the way, but after asking for directions a couple of times, we made it there a little before midnight. I didn't get anything to drink there (5 euro is plenty to spend on food and booze for one night, thank you very much), but I enjoyed talking with people, and was happy to see a lot of classmates and friends there. The bar quickly became extremely crowded and noisy, so we made periodic trips outside to breath some (comparatively) fresh air. Three hours later, after being hit on, squished in the mob, meeting some interesting new people, and probably breathing in the equivalent of a cigarette or two in second-hand smoke, I was more than ready to go home. It took a little while to shove our way back out of the crowd and round everyone up, but in the end, I ended up walking with Skyla to the Ciudadela. The buddy system was a good plan, we thought. And we talked the entire time in reasonably fast and articulate Spanish! I was proud of us. Maybe Spanish flows easier at three in the morning? Kind of strange, but cool.

So my consensus of the evening was that it was pretty fun, but I definitely do not want to do it all the time. I'll never be a party girl, I think, so once in a while is plenty. It definitely is interesting though - you never know what you'll see!

Today, I'm just chilling out. I'm going through church withdrawals, so I watched a sermon-thinger on the internet (not really a church service, so I'm not sure what to call it). At some point I'll get to a church, but it hasn't worked out yet. And there are really no protestant churches to be found in Pamplona, as far as I can tell, so I'll have to give the Catholic thing a go sometimes. It'll be fun to see what it's like to worship in a different style, I daresay.

Later, I'm hoping that Lauren and I can go get our tickets for the bus to San Sebastian, from which town we will get to our train to get to Paris on Wednesday! I'm sooo excited! I won't be bringing my computer with me (too risky, and too heavy), so I won't be updating for a while, but rest assured that I'll be posting about our adventure to France when I return :)

Everday Joys

2010-01-31T15:29:00.000-08:00

I haven't written in a few days...I kept telling myself that not a lot was going on but then I realized that that's not true, it's just that I'm feeling more settled. So let's see how good my memory is, shall we?

So I finally have steady internet in my piso now! It feels like such luxury, let me tell you! My host mom went with me to the Vodaphone store and we figured out a payment method that costs far less than the way it was before. Thanks be to God!! So I've been pigging out on internet, so to speak, now that I have unlimited access. I won't be taking the internet for granted any time soon. And I was so extremely happy to have Skype! Being able to see my parent's faces has been great. I even got to introduce them to my host mom!

Another highlight is that Lauren, Lise, Kristen, and I think Ellen all signed up to take a Latin dance class at one of the community centers in Pamplona! We start on Thursday, and we're super excited to learn the tango, cha-cha, and bachata! It'll be a great time to meet new people, learn something fun, and get a little more exercise.

Something that's been taking a lot of time lately is trip planning! Lauren, Megan and I are going to Sevilla and Italy (Rome, Florence, and Venice) during Semana Santa (Holy Week), since we get like ten days off. We're so excited! Getting the numerous tickets ordered and planning all the connections is a bit of a headache, but we're getting it figured out, slowly but surely. Also, Lauren and I just booked a train ticket and a hostel for Paris! We're going during Valentine's Day weekend, and we're super stoked. I mean, what could be better? We're so blessed to have the opportunity to go to so many amazing places!

We've done some shopping here as well - Lise and I had an adventure to La Morea, the gigantic mall in Pamplona. We didn't stay too long, but it was fun to look around! We'll have to go back at some point and explore some more. We've also had several obligatory Corte Ingles runs, and have made it to a few other places as well. I got red lipstick and a dress that I'm super excited to wear!

And the food, as always, is different and exciting and generally delicious. My host mom has been serving me all sorts of yummy things - we had paella (a traditional Spanish dish of rice, seafood, and sometimes veggies), some really good soups such as a carrot soup which I love and want to learn how to make, all sorts of great fish dishes, and a gorgeous tarta de manzana (basically apple pie, with some sort of custard on the bottom - sooo good!). Also, I realized today that what I thought was chicken is actually rabbit, I believe. I don't really know how I mistook it for chicken, but I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes. So, kind of interesting...it tasted good though, so whatever!
And of course, the bread and wine continue to be excellent. Yes indeedy.
Oh, and we girls bought a bunch of candy the other day! That stuff is amazing here. The gominolas (gummies) are some of my favorites - they have candy shaped like sunny-side-up eggs, cows, turtles, brains, skulls, fruit, teeth, toothbrushes (?!)...you get the idea. And I've discovered that any chocolate with the brand name "Kinder" on it is bound to be pretty much the best stuff ever. Seriously. One kind even has a filling that reminds me of peanut butter, which made me super happy because that's one food that you definitely can't get here...alas.

One last point - now that I'm feeling more comfortable here, I've started to explore a little bit. For example, yesterday evening I needed to buy a new umbrella, so I told myself, "I am going to find an umbrella, and I'm going to find it tonight!" I didn't know where exactly to find a store that sells them, but since there are all sorts of little stores everywhere, I knew I'd find one if I walked long enough. And I was right! I went down a street in my neighborhood that was new to me, and before long I found a bazaar-type store with a whole rack of umbrellas! I was excited about my success :) Probably disproportionately so, but I didn't care. I felt so resourceful! And one of the many things that I love about living in the city is that, when you need something, if you keep walking long enough you're sure to find it. So fantastic!
Also did a bit of exploring today - I finally went inside the Ciudadela (I may have mentioned this before, but in case I didn't, it's the big park in the center of town; it was originally built hundreds of years ago as a sort of fortress to protect the city) instead of walking around it, and discovered that the place is freaking gorgeous! I am officially in love. There will definitely be pictures to come - I would have taken some today, but the light was not great for it. We haven't seen the sun in a while :P But anyway, when I saw all the cool old buildings and the mossy rock walls, I was like, "You know what? I am in SPAIN. And it's awesome!!" I am astounded all the time about how much I love being here and how blessed I am to get to live here for four months!

Well, Monday morning comes far too early, so it's high time I got to bed. Hasta luego!

What's That Thing I Came Here For Again? Oh Yeah, School.

2010-01-31T15:24:00.000-08:00

So, after reading my friends’ blogs lately, I’ve realized that I’ve almost completely neglected to talk about my classes. Probably because it’s one of the more normal things about this adventure, so other things have pushed it aside. Sometimes they feel like the least of my worries here, so I guess I need to start giving it a little more thought. Oy. In any case, I’ll give you a run-down of my schedule. Ready, go!

Grammar class – This has been pretty good so far. I’m in the level that’s one below the highest one, so not too shabby, I daresay. The stuff we’re doing right now is basically review for me, but since I still don’t have it down completely, that’s a good thing. We’ve actually had two different professors – the first one was really nice, but she’s new to teaching and is more accustomed to teaching a lower level of Spanish, so as I heard it, she didn’t feel confident that she was explaining things the way they ought to be. We were sorry to see her go, but the new professor that we got today seems really good, so whatever. I felt like I was understanding things better with her, so it all works out.

Conversación – This class is my favorite, much to my surprise – I almost didn’t take this one, but I’m so glad I did. The professor is great – he gives us really fun activities to do and makes the class interesting. For example, we played charades during a recent class period! I was a little apprehensive about this, but it was fun. I think it’s going to be a good class – I know I need the speaking practice, at any rate.

Civlización y Cultura – This one is pretty straightforward – history, country stats, geography, Spanish government, demographics, etc. Not the most interesting class so far, but it’s all good stuff to know. I was afraid it would be a lot of review since I took a similar class last semester, but thus far it’s been new information. And I think things will get more interesting as we go on. Maybe a little too interesting; one of our assignments is to create a survey and poll people on the street. Not my cup of tea, as you can imagine. But at least we get to work in pairs, so I guess it won’t be so bad. And there will be some fun things too – we get to take a day trip to Madrid to see some of the government buildings and a really old library (!!!), so that’ll be pretty sweet.

Literatura – This class has been a pretty good time so far. It’s been a lot of lecture, like C & C (which means that if I stop paying attention for like two seconds, I get lost and forget to think in Spanish), but it’s slightly more interactive. The prof asks us questions a lot, and has been teaching us a bunch of Spanish idioms, which is great. And I’ve loved getting some literature into my life; I have a feeling I’m going to really miss my English Lit. by the time this semester is over, so at least I get a little literary analysis and reading with this class.

Traduccion – Ah, the infamous class. We girls had high hopes for this one, since we all really enjoy translating and wanted to learn more about what it’s like. However, we soon found out that the professor doesn’t teach it in a way that helps us learn. He didn’t seem to understand our questions a lot of the time, and during classes we just do short little examples without really learning why something is right or wrong, or what the most correct answer is (since there are several ways to translate just one sentence). And so, we’re going to drop this one since none of us really need the credits. I mean, why waste our time when we’re not learning anything if we’re not required to take the class? We’re just gonna cut our losses and take Translation back home at Concordia. You win some, you lose some, I guess.

So there you have it! I think it’s going to be a good semester, class-wise. It’s a good variety, and everything is pretty laid back, which is nice. I just hope it all improves my Spanish skills a great deal, and then I’ll be a happy girl. :-)

Picture time!

2010-01-29T08:09:00.000-08:00

Me by the gorgeous view at the top of the hill in San Sebastian!

Us girls in downtown Pamplona

My room

Our group of awesome Cobbers on the Estatua de los Toros (Bull Statue) on Calle (street) Carlos III

On the bus, headed to La Morea (the enormous mall in town) with Lise!

Different Things

2010-01-28T15:30:00.000-08:00

This is the part where I tell you about the random stuff I’ve noticed…

• I pretty much never feel the need to work out here – I walk everywhere, and it’s usually a minimum of two miles a day. I’m gonna have such leg muscles by May!
• Cars stop for pedestrians. This blows my mind – it never happens at home. It’s nice to be able to cross the street easily without having to worry that someone’s going to run me down.
• There are palm trees here!
• There are buildings in this town that are older than the United States. Ponder that one for a while.
• Hot chocolate in Spain is not hot water with Nestlé powder – it’s literally chocolate that is hot. It’s basically melted baking chocolate with whole milk, thickened with cornstarch or an equivalent. Seriously. I think it’s technically meant to be eaten with churros, but we like it plain just as well, let me tell you.
• Speaking of whole milk – that stuff is super popular here. My host mom buys it sometimes, and it’s in every cup of café con leche that you’ll ever find here. I always feel sort of bad when I drink it, because it’s so fattening, but it tastes reeeal good.
• Spanish bread is pretty much the food of the gods. Since bread is my favorite food anyway, I love the fact that I get a hunk of good, fresh, chewy bread at every lunch and dinner. Boy, will I miss it when I go home.
• Prices are weird –one never knows if something is going to be way more expensive or way cheaper than one is used to seeing. For example, you can get an entire baguette-style loaf of bread for only one euro and wine is often cheaper than water, but a tube of Maybelline mascara runs you about 10 euro.
• The bus system is fabulous here – they’re all clean and they can take you pretty much anywhere in town that you need to go in a reasonable amount of time.
• All the baby strollers are really cool-looking – not only are the kids here super adorable, but they look like they’re always comfy.
• I once saw a baby being pushed in a stroller side-by-side with a really old man being pushed in a wheelchair. I was amused…
• Ham is the meat of choice here – more common than fish, even. Like, seriously. It’s everywhere. They even had entire pig legs hanging from the ceiling in a couple of the bars I’ve been in.
• Getting to have wine with every lunch kind of makes my day, not gonna lie.
• I sort of hate that I stick out so much as an American…people keep telling me that I can speak in English with them or seem oddly unable to understand me when I speak in simple sentences (I mean, my accent isn’t that bad, is it?)…I long for the day when my Spanish speaking skills don’t suck!
• It’s sooo warm here. It’s only been colder than 5 degrees Celsius (which is approximately 40 degrees Fahrenheit) a couple of times. It makes me feel sort of guilty when I think about all you people shivering at home in Minnesota/North Dakota :-S
• The pace is so much slower here. Everyone is really chill, and being on time or doing things quickly isn’t really an issue. This is really inconvenient when you’re trying to get something done or waiting for someone to do something for you (*cough* suitcase *cough*), but most of the time it’s really relaxing.
• One thing I miss is the fresh air at home – living in the city, I’m always able to smell cigarette smoke (sooo much smoke…no me gusta), food smells, industrial smells, and other random things. When we went to San Sebastián, we definitely enjoyed the freshness of ocean air. It gets a little oppressive here sometimes.
• Living in the middle of a city is a completely new experience for me, and I really like it! There’s always something interesting to see or somewhere cool to go, and virtually everything I need is within walking distance.
• I’m developing a rudimentary sense of direction (Egads!). Or at least the ability to memorize large portions of the city.
• From the old furniture in my piso to the gorgeous buildings in el casco antiguo, it seems like everything has so much more character here.
• People are super helpful when it comes to being lost in town – you can stop pretty much anyone on the street and ask for directions, and they’ll tell you without hesitation. Something I’m super thankful for.
• It’s sooo easy to spend money here – I consider it an accomplishment if I can go an entire day without doing so. I can’t imagine how people can afford to live here all the time!
• There are so many places to buy chic clothes, and everyone looks so fashionable. And I mean everyone. There are babies walking around in pea-coats and leather boots, for goodness’ sake.
• Every girl wears boots, usually knee-highs or even thigh-highs. Like, it’s practically a requirement. I have not regretted buying my 18-euro boots for one second.
• The food is super salty, yet no one seems to drink water very much. I have no idea how they do it…I always end up really thirsty.
• Meal times are so different – breakfast is at the normal time, but lunch is anywhere from 2:00 to 3:30 or sometimes even later, and dinner is never earlier than 9:30 and is usually more like 10:00 or 10:30. I don’t mind it, but I’m definitely still getting used to it.
• You can buy roasted chestnuts from street vendors. I’ve noticed one that’s really near my house, and it’s out most evenings. I tried one before when one of the girls bought a bag, but I don’t really feel the need to buy an entire bag of my own…they taste a little strange, to be honest.
• Yes, European chocolate is about ten times better than the stuff we have in the U.S., that much is certain.
• There are so many beautiful people here! I’m thinking Europe got the best of the beauty genes. I can count on one hand the number of overweight people I’ve seen here, and I’m constantly astounded by all the pretty people I walk by every day! It’s hard not to stare…lol. I once had to ask an extremely gorgeous young man for help with the WiFi at the Civican, and I was proud that I was able to get the words out (though I’m sure I was blushing) :-P
• I love the fact that I know people from a bunch of different countries now! Taiwan, Italy, Poland, Germany, Iraq, several U.S. states, Canada, and Norway to name a few.
• At home, olive oil is a treat, and we use it sparingly. Here, we get it all the time! It’s pretty much the cooking staple.
• Now here’s the one you thought you’d never hear me say – I’ve come to really love sleeping here. I sooo love my bed. It’s probably all this walking…makes sleep sound pretty darn inviting by the end of the day.
• Some of the hairstyles here are crazy – I mean, not like we don’t have that at home, but I’ve never seen anything quite like some of the styles here. I’ve seen several women with a weird sort of mullet – the front part is cut short and sort of masculine-looking, while the back remains long. I’ve seen a similar style on guys – most of it is short, but they have a few dreadlocks hanging down the back. And I’ve seen several old ladies with colors like pink and purple in their hair. All sort of strange-looking styles, but whatever floats your boat, I guess.
• The fish is fresh, not frozen. So yummy!
• Mountains!!! ‘Nuff said.
• And my favorite – the rest of you Concordia people are going to hate me for this, but I have next to no homework. As in, an hour of homework in a day is on the high end. I have the opposite problem than the one I had at home – I have to figure out how to fill the hours instead of having to figure out how to stretch them out as long as I can. It’s a problem that I love to have, I must confess. I knew I made the right choice in coming here! :-)

Introducing: Host Mom

2010-01-28T15:23:00.000-08:00

So since I’ve neglected to do this earlier, I’d like to introduce you to my host mom. Her name is María Jesús, and she’s 70 years old. I believe she’s a widow, but I haven’t asked (I didn’t know if it would be indelicate to do so, so I decided to play it safe). And she has one daughter – who I have met and who is super nice – and one son, both of whom are married and in their 40’s. Her daughter lives here in Pamplona (as far as I can tell) and her son lives in the Canary Islands. María Jesús also has three grandchildren, who are all her son’s children.

She and I live together in a two-bedroom, one bathroom piso with a balcony, a nice living room, and the tiniest kitchen I’ve ever seen! Our piso is great – the décor is beautiful, and it’s just the right size for two people. The only thing that could make it better is if I could get internet here without spending my life savings, but one can’t have it all.

Anyway, I love living with my host mom! She’s a great surrogate mom, and she even reminds me of my grandma sometimes. She’s done so much to make my transition and my life here easier. When I first got here, she told me the things I needed to know and do just a little bit at a time, which was great because it made things feel much less overwhelming. And the first night I was here, she put her hand on my shoulder and said, “It’s all right, I’m going to be like your mom while you’re here, so you don’t have to worry.” That made me feel a lot better, since I was feeling pretty out-of-sorts at that point.

Also, she really likes to have things neat and tidy (Mom, the two of you would get along well, I think :-P) and she shows me how she likes things to be done. I try to do things the way she shows me, but I think I’m still getting the hang of it. :-) However, she does a lot of stuff for me – like making yummy meals every day and washing my clothes. It’s been so nice not to have to worry about that stuff! It has taken me a little bit to get used to someone coming into my space and moving things around, but I can’t complain, because I don’t have to clean!

My host mom is very mother-ish, but that’s kind of nice in a lot of ways. She was joking with me some about her being too “pesado” (which roughly translates to “smothering,” I think), because she’s always telling me that I need to wear more clothes and be safe and stuff like that, but it’s sort of nice to be mothered a little more for a while, so I don’t really mind. She’s always trying to make sure that I have what I need and that I’m not too hot or too cold or too hungry. And she’s really good about letting me hang out with friends and not expecting me to be back at certain times, etc. She made sure to warn me to be careful with the wine, though – “Es muy fuerte, toma solo un poco!” (It’s really strong, just drink a little bit!). And she makes sure that I know how to get where I’m going so I don’t get lost. On the first day that I went to the university here, she rode the bus with me to make sure I got there all right. Her help is the main reason that I know anything about the bus system, and she’s always willing to tell me directions to where I need to go if I ask.

Another nice thing is that she knows that I’m learning Spanish, so she makes a point of helping me practice by talking to me, asking me questions, and telling me the words for things. She often checks to make sure that I’m following her, and says, “Did you understand? Tell me what I just said.” She probably thinks I’m a little slow :-P – I have a hard time understanding her sometimes – but she’s really patient and is always willing to repeat herself, since she knows I’m still working on my Spanish.
So basically, I’m so blessed to have such a great host mom! I’m really glad to be living with her. I honestly don’t know if I could have made it this long here without her! I’m so thankful to God for putting great people like my host mom in my life.

What are Men Compared to Rocks and Mountains?

2010-01-16T14:44:00.001-08:00

This has been quite an exciting weekend so far! I sometimes wonder if this is really happening; it’s so amazing!

Yesterday (Friday) was a really fun day. I went out for lunch with my host mom, her daughter Susana, and her daughter’s husband Pedro, in order to celebrate Susana’s birthday. I did well enough understanding the conversation. My ability to understand sort of comes and goes in waves…one moment I can understand every word, and the next moment I have no idea what’s going on. I’m getting there, I guess.

Anyway, the lunch was soooo yummy! The main course that I ordered was a type of small fish called salmonetes, served with French fries (which I was really excited about!). I was a little apprehensive because I was pretty sure they were going to give me the whole fish, and sure enough, here comes my plate with two virtually intact little fishies – heads, tails, and bones included. But my host mom showed me how to cut them up and remove the bones, so it was no big deal. And it was delicious!! Fish is so much better when you order it at a place this near to the ocean.

Later, after going on some errands with my host mom and Susana (and having an embarrassing moment – I had my backpack with me so they thought I had my computer with me – which I did not – so they took me to Civican to figure out why I couldn’t get internet before. But I didn’t realize what they were about until we got there. Boy, this non-fluency thing makes me feel pretty dang stupid sometimes) I went to meet Lauren and Maja at the Corte Ingles. We decided to go explore el casco antiguo for a while, which was very cool. All the old buildings are so awesome! After looking around for a while, we decided to stop and have a bite to eat at the Café Iruña, a very old and lovely place with ornate décor. We had some cake that can only be described as the death-by-chocolate variety. So delicious!

When we left the café, Lauren and Maja were feeling tired so we decided to start heading back. While we were walking back through the plaza, we randomly met a couple of our advisers from the school and a couple of friends that they were with! It was a fun coincidence. Also, one of the guys was actually from America, so it was really cool to talk with him. They told us that they were on their way to dinner and invited us to join. Lauren and Maja were really looking forward to resting at home so they decided to get going, but I wasn’t feeling like I wanted to go back just yet, so I decided to go for it and hang out with them for a while. We ended up going to a place called Café Americano, interestingly enough. It’s a place with pseudo-American food – imagine a Spanish T.G.I. Friday’s. I got some nuggets that were actually quite good. We had a lot of fun talking and joking around; I was glad I had run into such a fun group of people! One of my profs ended up meeting us there, so it was a little funny for me to have my school-world and my social-world combine, but it was fun. And the guy from America was very nice – he told me funny stories about his friends in Pamplona, and he explained what the others were talking about when the conversation sped up. Also, he told me that if my friends and I want to do something fun on a weekend, I can call him and he and his friends will take us to some cool places. That sort of thing seems to happen a lot here – things may be very different and overwhelming sometimes, but there are so many wonderful people who are so happy to help and to make this experience the best it can be for us intercambios. :-)

After the café, the American and the other guy in the group invited me to hang out with their friends at one of the bars in casco antiguo. And I thought, why not? We went to a little, dark, and extremely noisy bar located deep among the old, twisty streets. It was a pretty cool place, but I think I would have liked it better if I’d had a friend along with me – I wasn’t sure what to talk about so I stood and tried to hear over the pounding music and drank my beer quietly. But it was pretty interesting, and I got to meet some new people (It still throws me for a loop sometimes when someone goes in to kiss me on the cheek, but I’m learning :-P). I kept thinking about how weird it was that I started the evening with people I knew and ended it with a group of people that were entirely new to me as of that night! Good thing they were trustworthy people. Afterward, the two guys walked me back to my neighborhood, which I was so thankful for, because I pretty much had no idea where I was at that point. Again, there are so many nice, helpful people here! And that was my Friday.

Today was so wonderful as well! We had an excursion to San Sebastián. And I have decided that it’s probably the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. Ever. There are wonderful mountains, a bay called La Concha, extraordinarily beautiful old buildings and houses, and the most gorgeous view of the ocean that you could possibly imagine. I think I’m in love. We climbed up to a place with cool rock formations called Peine del Viento, or Wind Combs. There were also some metal sculptures and an outcropping, and some of the people in our group went to climb around on them while the rest of us watched and hoped they wouldn’t fall off. After that, we took the tram up to the top of one of the hills. Let me tell you, the ocean looks even more beautiful from high up! The different colors of blue were amazing. There was also a little amusement park at the top, but it was really bizarre and kind of sketchy. We were amused by its weirdness, at any rate.

It took us a bit to climb back down, and I and three other girls lagged behind the group at one point, but we got to see some really cool, very European-looking houses on the way down. The whole adventure was quite a long walk, but it was fun and we saw so many nice views. And I made a couple of new friends – a guy from Hong Kong and a girl from Taiwan. Not having known many Asian people before, I was unfamiliar with some of their mannerisms, but they were so friendly and nice! Apparently, many people from Taiwan are super friendly, which is cool. I was jealous of the skill that the two of them have of talking easily with new people!

Anyway, once we got to the bar for pinchos, we were more than ready for a break. The first place was kind of small, but it was alright. I had a pincho that was basically a ball of cheese in breading. I liked the second place a little better, especially since we finally got to sit down! I had a beer there (which I think I’m beginning to like, strangely enough) and more to eat – a little sandwich with a slice of tortilla in it (a Spanish tortilla is not like the U.S. version – it’s sort of like a thick omelet with potatoes and onions in it, and you can order it everywhere), a seafood pastry, and another that consisted of three chunks of pulpo – octopus. Yes, you read that right. It even had the suckers on it! I really liked it – the texture was good, and it actually tasted a little like chicken (just like every random meat, apparently).

After the bar, we went shopping a little bit, and I bought a bunch of yummy Spanish candy at a little dulcería. Seriously, these last two days have been pretty much one big gastronomical adventure. And hey, I’m totally not complaining. Anyway, pretty soon after that, we headed back to the bus to go home. By then, we were all quite tired and ready to rest after a long day of walking, but we were happy after a day of so many beautiful and/or delicious moments!

So, two sore feet and approximately 100 pictures (which I will hopefully be able to post as soon as I can find an internet connection that will handle them) later, I’m back home. I’ll sleep well tonight, that’s for sure. And I’m so glad to have a bunch of great new memories! What a great couple of days.

What a Wonderful World!

2010-01-13T15:49:00.000-08:00

So, today was pretty much the best day ever! I totally needed it. There were so many triumphs and great moments. I feel so blessed! My “honeymoon” stage was a little late in coming, but boy, is it ever here now!

I’m getting to the point where I feel very comfortable walking to and from many places in Pamplona. If you’re as directionally challenged as I am, you will understand the sense of euphoric victory which comes with successfully navigating a large area. Since I always depended on other people when I went places at home, I never had to find the way for myself, so this confidence and pride is something that is quite new to me. And let me tell you, it’s intoxicating!

Today was full of so many fun experiences! I was finally able to catch the bus this morning, which was glorious, since I have to walk really far on the days that I have my first class in the Social Sciences building. And I only had two classes today, so I went exploring in Iturrama for a while with a couple of friends. Iturrama is a section of the city just north of the university, where we found a store that sells school supplies, a tobaco shop (these are sort of all-purpose shops; they sell more than just tobacco – things like bus cards, magazines, etc.), a grocery store, and a Civivox. I’m hoping to go to the Civivox someday soon and finally get a chance to Skype!

Another fun little moment was when my host mom had me go to the frutería (where they sell fruits and vegetables) and the panadería (the bakery) to get some things for lunch. And I got exactly what she had told me to get, so that was a good time :-)
Anyway, after the Iturrama expedition, I made it safely home on my own – this was especially significant for me because I used a route that I had gotten lost before and was able to recognize where I had turned wrong. I was so proud of myself! I feel so intrepid :-) After chilling at the piso for a bit, I used the same path I had just familiarized myself with to meet my friends Lauren and Maja at the Corte Inglés (if I haven’t already said, this is the huge and very popular - though expensive – department store, rather like a Macy’s or Saks Fifth Avenue). We chatted and shopped for a while and then met up with Lise and Kristen M. From there we went and found a young ladies’ clothing store that we’ve wanted to visit, called Mango. This store is sort of similar to Forever 21 in the U.S. We enjoyed ourselves by looking around for a while, and then we had a bit of an issue with the trying-on process. Apparently the Five Items Only rule is strictly enforced at Mango, and we weren’t able to try on the things that the clerks had us leave behind, because they had put the items away by the time we’d finished round one. But, you know – c’est la vie. And most of us ended up with some cute things, so it worked out okay.

After Mango, we went walking around a bit and had fun listening to Lauren’s hilarious stories about her host mom, and we took a bunch of pictures in front of the fountain in the plaza. That was a well documented moment, as Kristen M. very aptly said.
Pretty soon after that, Kristen M. and Lise left to head back home, since their host mom was making a big dinner for them and they needed to be home in time. Lauren, Maja (that’s pronounced like “Maya,” by the way – she’s Norwegian) and I were thinking about finding a café or bar to eat dinner in, but after walking around the streets a bit, we found out that the only places that looked promising to us were already closing, so we decided to go back to the Corte Inglés and have a snack in the nice little Cafetería on the 8th floor of the store. The food was lovely – I had a little chocolate soufflé (sort of like chocolate lava cake, or whatever we call it in the States) and some delicious coffee. So, I’m pretty set for the week, as far as sugar is concerned :-P And we had such a fun conversation – the consensus was that, even though the first week here was difficult, we’ve all gotten over the initial stress of it all, and feel that we’re adjusting quite well. We’re finding that we really are capable, and it’s such a good feeling! And we’re all enjoying the fact that we get to meet so many wonderful people and that we’ve been blessed to have people to help us and befriend us just when we needed it most.

And so, as of today, I’ve realized that I absolutely love it here! It’s such a relief to finally feel that way. And I’m looking forward to so many things. I finally feel like this experience will be worth everything it took to get here. I’m so excited to find out what happens next!

Up and Down

2010-01-12T12:11:00.001-08:00

I’m not really sure where to begin with this post. And it’s going to be a bit disjointed, as I’m still trying to take it all in and deal with switching back and forth between languages, but I ask that you bear with me :) But I finally have (rather expensive) internet now, so I can give you a real update, which I’m super excited about!

The last week has been pretty much the biggest emotional roller coaster I’ve ever been on. What with lost luggage (which finally came yesterday, to my boundless delight – I feel like I have such wealth after living off of the things in my backpack and a few items from my host mom), getting over jet lag, missing family and friends, adjusting to a place that’s so different from home – and above all, trying not to get lost – it’s definitely been an adventure so far. There are parts of this trip that I don’t even want to think about, much less go through again.
However, I don’t want you to think that I’m unhappy here or that everything has been terrible – that’s simply not the case. Now that things are a little less overwhelming, and now that I’m able to take things a day (or even an hour) at a time – “poco a poco,” my host mom (who is extremely nice and motherly and is always making sure I have what I need) wisely says – I’m starting to really enjoy my time here. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been here only a week; the days seem to last forever here because there’s so much to take in and because the pace is quite a bit slower than at home. But I keep going by reminding myself that, first and foremost, God is with me and is helping me every step of the way. Also, it’s good for me to remember that very few people have the opportunity to do this, and the fact that I am in Europe right now and get to experience so many amazing things is nothing short of incredible.

And all the little triumphs that I make every day are very encouraging as well. There are things like the fact that I can go to the bakery and buy bread for my host mom, walk to the university and not get lost, successfully use some of the buses, and often find myself able to understand perfectly what someone is telling me in Spanish, which show me that I am certainly not as incompetent and lost as I feel sometimes. And as always, I take pleasure in little things – I love the fact that the bread and coffee here are amazing, that I’m going to be super fit pretty soon with all of this walking, that I got to listen to some old ladies brag about their grandkids in Spanish last night, and even that, one night, a group of people walked down my street boisterously singing “Feliz Navidad”! Also, I love the fact that Spanish TV is fantastic! There are a lot of good Spanish programs, and they dub a lot of American shows and movies (and do quite a good job). I even saw part of The Return of the King a couple of days ago! I was stoked :) Oh, and the Spanish version of Spongebob (“Bob Esponja”)? So hilarious!

And there have been more than just little things. My favorite day so far was our first day of orientation, on Friday. In the morning, my host mom helped me find the bus station and made sure I got to the university okay (did I mention how great she is?) and to my surprise and delight, Skyla was on the bus when I got on it! I’d been worried about her, having had no way to contact her to learn whether she had made it safely to Pamplona, so I was extremely glad to see her. Once at school, we were given some information about the school and some of its organizations, and we started the registration process for classes. The schedule seems like it’ll be kind of strange, but I’m sure it’s manageable. Later, we had a nice long lunch in the cafeteria, and some of the other Concordia girls and I got to know a girl from Norway a little bit better. After that, we had a tour of the campus. From that, we transitioned to a tour of part of Pamplona. I feel somewhat more familiar with the city, but I think it’s going to be a while before I stop being afraid of getting lost all the time and stop wanting to carry my map with me everywhere. Anyway, we went all the way to the casco antiguo, which is the oldest part of the city – it dates back to medieval times, I believe, though I’m not sure of the exact period. Though the roads are confusing, it’s so beautiful there and I’m excited to go back – we got to see the gorgeous plaza where Ernest Hemingway himself used to sit, and the hotel in which he used to stay. We even got to see the stadium where they have bull fights, as well as the main street where they have the famous Running of the Bulls! We were amused to see that there is a digital clock counting down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until the next time those crazy men will go hurtling down the narrow calles with angry bulls in pursuit – an event which I will regrettably miss this time around. After all this walking, we were getting pretty cold and tired, so we stopped in a bar to have a caña (beer). After that, some of the girls and I went with one of the leaders to go buy cell phones (quite an adventure, let me tell you – it took forever), and then went to another bar where all the groups were to meet. It was fantastic – I had my first pincho, (in the south, they call them tapas) which is the name for the yummy mini-meals that one can order at most Spanish bars, and also my first glass of sangria, which was delicious. And it was so much fun to meet some of the amazing international students! I met people from Germany, France, Norway, Asia, other parts of the U.S., Mexico, and Iraq. What a wonderful, diverse group of beautiful people!:) I absolutely can’t wait to get to know them better.

After all this, classes finally started as of yesterday. I’m still trying to get into school-mode, but that’ll come. And I think my classes are going to be pretty interesting and not too difficult, so I’m glad for that. For this evening, I’m planning to unwind a bit. It seems I have to do that a whole lot more often, but thankfully there are far more opportunities – things are very relaxed around here. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll have more adventures to tell you soon, but for now, I plan to do my best to take everything in and enjoy this roller coaster ride as it comes. And no matter that there are low points – the mountaintops are just around the bend!

FINALLY In Pamplona

2010-01-10T04:39:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am in Spain. I still can hardly believe it, even after three days of travel, lost luggage, and all kinds of craziness. I don´t have time to write much because the library is going to close soon. But I´m doing okay...I want my stuff and I´m really homesick and I REALLY want a steady internet connection, but things will get better in time.
I´ll be able to tell you more later about my adventure in the Casco Antiguo and such, but for now I must go.
I hope to talk to you soon! I should be getting internet tomorrow. And thank God for that!

Ready, Set, Go!

2009-11-28T23:18:00.002-08:00

Hello, friends! Welcome to my blog.

During my study abroad semester in Pamplona, Spain, I plan to make this my primary way of updating you all on my European exploits :) This way, I’ll be minimizing the amount of time I spend thinking in English by not sending out too many individual e-mails (all part of the immersion experience, you know!), and it’ll also be my way of tucking you in my bag and taking you along for the ride. Hold on tight!

At the risk of proving myself an even bigger Lord of the Rings nerd, I decided to steal a couple of quotations for my URL and blog title. Their use may be a little hackneyed (I had to put the 73 in my URL because someone apparently had this bright idea before me. And because it’s my favorite number.), but I feel justified in my choice, as my situation feels similar to certain hobbits we have known – I feel compelled as well as frightened to take this journey, and yet the thrill of the adventures awaiting me is the thing that’s giving me the courage to dive into the many unknowns of a place I’ve only read and dreamed about. However, I’m really thankful that the stakes aren’t nearly as high for my own mission…quest…thing.

With only a little over a month standing between me and a trans-Atlantic airplane ride, I find myself terrified and elated by turns. I’m doing everything I can to prepare my mind and heart…and suitcase. Very soon, I’ll find myself with a passport and a prayer as my dearest possessions, ready to leave what’s familiar and see what awaits me. I can’t wait to find out what happens next!

Thanks for tagging along with me! I’m excited to share my experiences in Spain and Europe with all of you. I’ll do my best to update this blog regularly so you can see what I’m up to. Oh, and I’d greatly appreciate your prayers, if you feel so inclined :)

I’ll be talking to you soon! Goodbye for now.