sábado, 20 julio

This is taken nearly verbatim from the notes I took on my phone during all of our travels on Saturday. 

Saturday
- Finished packing
- Walked to bus and said goodbye. Nostalgic
- "say goodbye to our workout DVD!" Brady
- stretched out and sang songs: home bound
- got into the line for Iberia/our flight; had a long wait but got both tickets easily
- went through security and didn't have to take off my shoes.
- cramped metro style shuttle
- fought through passport line. Crazy lady. Split group. Slow people made real life Tetris.
- on plane. Aisle seat.
- lunch: oj; salad; pasta with corn, mushrooms, fake cheese; coffee cake; pan; cafe
- café didn't work. Slept. Woke up to guy behind me turning on the spotlight, I mean I know I'm the princess on this flight but we try to keep it on the downlow
- sleepy. Oj.
- dumb light again. Flew over Canada
- 2nd lunch: turkey and cheese sandwich; croissant; yogurt; chunky Kit Kat; café and té
- de plane. Scan passport, take photo. Get luggage. Through checkpoint with receipt. Gave luggage back. Tram. Security.
- chili at chiles
- found gate. And electricity and nap
- Starbucks and convo with Midwestern man
- board. weather. delay.
-Taking off. Heading north and looping around weather
- talked with Katie about fams and sororities and culture
- family! Talked on car ride. Fell asleep.
- scrapbooking planned for Sunday

viernes, 19 julio

Today we didn't have class but my friends and I were meeting for breakfast so I was able to sleep in a little bit, but not waste the whole day. Alex, Colby, Emily, Sophie, Natalie, Conner, Martín and I all met at Zocodover before heading to a restaurant to get breakfast. we got churros and everyone either got chocolate (that was similar to pudding) or café con leche. I got café and finished Natalie's chocolate. Martín is from China and part of their culture is to give gifts before saying goodbye and I received a postcard which he wrote his name in Chinese on the back, we also learned how to pronounce it but I'm not that good at it. We also compared the Chinese money with Euros, which have more similarity with each other than American dollars. We took a group photo and Colby got 'attacked' by a falling bird's egg. We decided that animals in España don't like Americans since we've been 'attacked' multiple times. After breakfast we finished getting all of our presents for people back home. We are finally able to take short-cuts with out being afraid of getting lost. At one point I was approached by someone wanting signatures for a petition who thought I was an Española which made me a lot happier than being confused for German or French. At one point we were in one of the very narrow streets and had to get really close to the wall when cars past by and Emily got a photo of everyone lined against the wall. 

I headed back home to eat lunch as well as pack and I decided that I am a horrible packer and don't want to leave. I'm not quite sure how everything is going to fit into my suitcase. For almuerzo we had huevos fritas, cuban rice (white rice with tomato sauce) and chizos (hot dogs). After lunch I gave Sandra the presents I brought from Nebraska and attempted to explain what Kool-Aid is and why it's a Nebraska tradition. She asked about other traditions and places in Nebraska. I showed her pictures online and told her about game days and Husker traditions, the stadium and it being the 3rd largest 'city', the Omaha Zoo, and Hastings' Kool-Aid. She wanted what Lincoln looked like so I utilized Google images and maps. I then googled my addresses and compared the architecture and style of houses. After Sandra took Lara to the doctor because she wasn't feeling very good, I caught up on blogging and went back to packing. 

After packing and a shower I headed up to Zocodover to wait for everyone else and get rid of some of my coins. I ran into Colby in the bus and we went shopping together. He was looking for a gift that would represent either the 3 cultures or a sword. We spent about 5 minutes sitting on the floor deciding between two swords- it was hilarious. I then found a mosaic turtle that captured my attention. We then started to run into ESTO people. We ran into Alex, Emily and Sophie, and got some helado. I got frescas, mini Lacasitos and dulce de leche on top of mine- it was delicious and the best combo of everything available. We then got our group of nine (adding Conner, Martín, Natalie, and Mariah) and went for pizza. The man told us that 2 people could share one pizza but that wasn't true once he brought the pizza to the table. It was about the size of two pieces of sliced bread put together. 

After dinner I went back to my casa because I really wanted to spend my last night in Spain with my family. Either before or after dinner my plan is to go see the Luz Greco somewhere in Casco. Lara still isn't feeling well so I don't if they'll come with me. We watched an episode of a t.v. that was a police drama that I was able to follow along with and understand about 75% of it. Lara was then feeling well enough to go home so we said our goodbyes. For cena we had fried ham and cheese sandwiches, ensalada con tomatoes- I was excited! and for dessert we had the same fruit that we've been eating lately and I finally had the guts to ask exactly what kind of peach it was: paraguaya, a saturn peach. 

After cena I went to see Lux Greco. It is a light show with pictures on the buildings of Toledo accompanied by sounds. I first went to Puerta de Cambron and was close to the front. It was absolutely amazing! I really liked when they had a silhouette of El Greco projected on the building. I then went to Puerta de Bisagra. When the performance started it was extremely loud and I was sitting really close to the front and the speakers so I jumped a little, okay I eeped and jumped while sitting f that's even possible. This one was loud and scary at times, for example when the eagle crest was projected and then fought its way off of the wall, and then in the next 30 the show was very calm and tranquil. It was totally worth it though.

This is my last night in Spain and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm ready to go home and see everyone, but at the same time I could stay here for another month.  I will see you all later "today" since it is a little after midnight here in Spain. Oh timezones and I are not going to get along very well. 
Love you all! 
       

jueves, 18 julio

This morning was a struggle to wake up. I got about 4 or so hours of sleep and was super tired in the morning. In class we got our exams back and our final grade. I got a 10, 10, 9.5, & 9 all out of 10; I'm hoping that converts to an A back home. We went over the entire test and explained what we did wrong. I have problems with accents and the listening comprehension section, which is what I thought would happen, but I did better on the listening section than I predicted yesterday. We took a break after reviewing our tests and I got a tomate y queso empanada and some junk food to attempt to wake me up. After our break we started to work on our dance for tonight's fiesta. We all had different mini groups that kept transforming into a different idea to the point where our final dance is nothing like the original. My job is to hold up the 'sad' sign during a couple of verses of the song "La Vida Te Da." We do a lot of spinning and snapping, hopefully it'll turn out alright. If everything goes horribly wrong it'll still be fun, right?

When I was in casa I also made my list of things I still need to do before going home. I still need to go to the Cathedral and take a tour; see the Lux Greco tomorrow night; pack; and take in everything I can about this city. It's so weird to think that I only have two more nights here before I'll be home in Nebraska. I read through some of my first posts and reflected over the last few weeks. I realized I made a lot of new habits, for example: siestas, saying 'Vale' instead of 'Okay', eating everything with bread in my left hand, actually using vosotros in conversation, as well as a million things I've probably picked up subconsciously. It will be interesting to see what habits I maintain back home, as well as the habits I didn't realize I acquired. I think my eating schedule is going to be the most difficult to get back into an Nebraska norm, since I'll be home for a few days and then on vacation with the Carlsons and I'm always eating at weird times on vacations. I do think that I'll end up 'attempting' to make some of the food Sandra makes but it still won't be the same; on my list is tortilla española since that was one of my favorite foods. For almuerzo today we had turkey leg and legume soup. It was alright but I would've liked to put some cheese on mine and for dessert we had grapes. I thought I was going to be really tired but I couldn't siesta so I decided to go to the Cathedral. At the Cathedral they give you an audioguide to follow along while walking through the Cathedral. It was really impressive and I kept pressing the 'hear more' options. My favorite part was obviously the stained glass everywhere, and a monstrance they carry through the streets once a year made from some of the first gold from America.

After the Cathedral ESTO put on a farewell fiesta. We were given leis and carnations; and afterwards we got a copy of the group photo. At the party each class performed a dance. Ours was a mess and Martín accidentally fell off the back of the stage into the banner behind. The whole thing was mildly embarrassing. After all of the dances were done we headed to the bus stop to take a bus to the discoteca. We did a lot of waiting for the bus and for everyone to arrive at the discoteca so I had time to talk with people from other Nebraskans' classes and we all had to use Spanish. Once we got into the discoteca we were served paella and tapas and I talked with someone from China and someone originally from Africa but now lives in Brazil. We compared all five cultures we were familiar with and ate paella and drank sangria. It wad really rewarding to be able to communicate with people with such diverse backgrounds. After everyone had inhaled their food we watched a video of all of the photos from the past month and I got really sentimental. After awhile my friend group decided to take shots and I had my very first shot of rum; apparently my expression was priceless. After that we all started to dance and I was tipsy enough to not care too much about dancing like crazy people. I definitely still had some camp counselor tendencies and tried to convince everyone else that they needed to dance or at least come and hang out with everyone. My group of co-dancers had a representatives from a lot of different countries so we were all speaking spanish to each other and I discovered that I'm more comfortable speaking Spanish when I'm a little tipsy because I'm not embarrassed by my mistakes and there isn't pressure to make 100% sense. We had a lot of fun dancing to different song from different countries. Towards the end of the night Alex, Colby and I took a shot of tequila; I was naive and had no idea what I was doing so my face was priceless again. I decided that I like the sweetness of rum over tequila, so someone remember that in a year when I turn 21 and I'm legally allowed to drink again.

Lots of Love!

miércoles, 17 julio

Exam day! We started at 9 with the writing section and I was fairly confident with everything but accents and one of the listening sections. The verb section was way easier than I anticipated and the writing section is one I've written many times: "When I was a child...." I wrote about living in Nebraska and playing ténis since it was a vocab word and we did examples using all of the verb tenses. It made me miss playing tennis. I was done a little after 10 am and had to wait until 12:30 to do my oral exam with a partner. My partner was Duria and she is from China. We were still able to commincate fairly well even though the only language we had in common was Spanish. I was so nervous for the oral exam but Natalia said I have good pronunciation, vocabulary skills, and the ability to correct my mistakes, but since I'm soft-spoken it can be hard for me to put the right inflictions on words sometimes. One way to help is to watch comedies in Spanish, which is going to be a good excuse to watch t.v. and movies in Spanish. 

When I got back to the casa Sandra's mom and brother were there so I got to met them and they asked a million questions about my time here and what Nebraska is like. It was hard to explain that Nebraska is in the middle of the country and that makes it a 24+ car ride to a beach. For lunch we had pumpkin soup which was amazing and then chicken breasts and fries. I think this is day 2 of eating my entire plateful of food. I didn't siesta today, instead I went to El Grecco museo.

I was supposed to meet Natalie at 4 but since the Jewish Quarter is very confusing and there are a million museums and a million places with "El Grecco" on it, we never did catch up with each other. I made it into the museo by myself and wandered around. I think my favorite part about a museum dedicated to one person is that there was a room dedicated to other people, like his students, attempting to replicate El Grecco's paintings. I also liked his map of Toledo since they had a modern map available from a similar location for comparison. After El Grecco, I wandered back through all of the streets to pick out presents and souvenirs. I got mistaken for German in a store. I'm okay with being identified as American but getting confused for German here and French in Madrid really confuses me. 

On my way home I helped two very lost girls find their way in the Casco. They were from Guatemala and spoke no English, so I was forced to use Spanish. On the way one girl asked me how long I'd lived in Toledo, and when I answered 3 1/2 weeks her eyes got really big. Her friend then asked where I was from originally, when I answered the US, they didn't believe me and said I spoke fairly good Spanish for not being a native speaker. Excuse me as I apply for dual citizenship...

I came back to the casa and put everything away and then Lara and Sandra came home. Lara showed her mom a new way of applying makeup and so I got to attempt to learn the words for different types of makeup. It was definitely interesting. I ate dinner earlier than normal since we were finishing going to go out to celebrate the end of classes and exams. I had cheesy lasagna and bread. It was good but there was so much cheese! I also had plain yogurt that is really good with some fruit or sugar. This is just another example of what foods I discovered I liked while here. I've also gotten really good at cleaning my plate- quite literally! You use the bread crusts to get all of the goodness left on the plate. 

I then headed to Zocodover and Enebro's. I drank a sangria as our table grew and grew. At the peak of people we had 19 people sitting around 5 or 6 tables. Sophie got a strawberry mojito and I tasted a sip of it; it was sweet and minty. After everyone had consumed all of their sangria/cerveza/mojito/other drinks we headed over to O'Brien's which is an Irish pub down the road a little ways. I wasn't quite sure what to get to drink since my usual drink in Toledo is sangria, but I ended up getting a Toledo Made cerveza called Domus. I'm not a huge fan of beer but it had enough spices to make it drinkable.  After we finished at O'Brien's we walked back to Zocodover to make plans to either go to a discoteca or a park. Because it was too far to walk to the discoteca we decided to go to the park. I was easily amused by the gatos everywhere and we were all a little squirrelly. By the time we walked home it was about 3 am and I fell asleep almost instantly. 

Love you all! 

martes, 16 julio

Today in class we finished talking about pronouns and using both direct (what?) and indirect (to whom?) object pronouns. About halfway through the morning a couple office assistants came into our class to give us class evaluation forms and photo releases. I was able to remember my passport number, but completely spaced on how to spell "University of Nebraska-Lincoln." We then played a game where we had to spilt our inheritance from our Aunt Pepa, and practice using pronouns. I got tennis rackets, trees, surfboards, and a dog. It was an hilarious adventure; Diego got a collection of high heels and a piggy bank. We were a mix of native English and Chinese speakers so explaining piggy bank was an adventure in talking in circles. During our break an elderly man came up to Emily, Sophie and I and talked to us while standing rather close, and then gave us the customary cheek kisses before he left. I know its part of the Spanish culture but it made me super uncomfortable since I had no idea who this man was. After the break we talked about our exam tomorrow and played a vocabulary review game using a game show format. First we had a couple of words that we had to define in teams, and then we went around the room telling the first letter of the word and then giving the definition. The rest of the teams had to race to say the correct vocab word first. Our team won with 11.5 points; I remembered more vocab than I realized I knew. And finally, we quickly reviewed the grammar we talked about in class; and I remembered most of what we learned. 

For lunch today we had spaghetti and I actually cleaned my entire plate for the very first time! Sandra was so proud of me! At 3pm the daily news comes onto the TV and today it was very political. Since I have my exam tomorrow I decided to study during siesta time. However, I quickly fell into a warm room food coma and took a little siesta. I eventually woke up and began the process of going through all of my notes from the past month or so. I started by going through all of the vocabulary we learned and when I couldn't remember what it was, I'd type it into Google Images so I'd associate the spanish word with the object rather than the english which apparently helps to learn the words. I spent most of the evening studying and getting distracted by finding Max Ernst's painting on Pinterest. I drank a really good cold (not iced) tea that I thought was some sort of alcohol when Sandra first brought me a glass; as well as fresh orange juice and bread. I worked through most of the evening and through my solo dinner of fried cheese sticks and fries, peach, yogurt and bread. While watching the end of today's Tour stage, I got really excited thinking I understood what the cyclist was saying in Spanish... turns out the stage 16 yellow jersey winner is from Great Britain. This is what happens when you study spanish all night long! 

Love y'all! 

lunes, 15 julio

Today in class we talked about children's stories/fairytales. Katrina and I wrote an amazing and hilarious story about Juan running through Amsterdam and tripping through a magical window, being in a coma, and then the princess, Elena, kissed him and he woke up. They obviously lived happily ever after. It's really hard to write stories in Spanish because you are limited by the amount of vocabulary and grammar you know, but it is definitely a lesson in talking in circles to get your idea across. During our break we headed over to get empanadas which were delicious, and a good snack to hold me over to lunch. After the break we reviewed the different accent/tilde categories. I remembered the lesson from Yoanna's class last semester so it was mostly a review for me, but it's nice to hear more explanations of grammar forms and rules. We then started a lesson on direct and indirect object pronouns, which are annoying to listen and discern, but wonderful when writing.

For lunch today we had paella and salad. I'm kind of getting sick of paella because we had it Saturday for dinner in Valencia, Sunday for lunch in Candeleda, and today for lunch. But since it is a traditional spanish meal, I guess it is to be expected. I enjoyed a little siesta that wasn't long enough to help me catch up on my sleep deficit from this weekend.

(We lost internet again last night so this is from memory more or less)
At 5 I went to Madre de Dios to study with some friends. We made a couple trips to a mercado to get snack food and listened to different types of music. I did get my homework done, but I wasn't extremely productive as time wore on. At about 830 we decided to go get tapas at Lizzaran and realized we'd been locked into M de D. We had to call Chris and then a security guard to let us out of the building. It was a little embarrassing, but still fun. When we got to Lizzaran I got a couple of very good tapas and spilt a fries, egg and ham plate with Mariah, and drink a sangria. The evening was fun even though we were locked into the building for a while; and I was able to fall asleep before midnight which was wonderful.

Love you all!

Valencia and Candeleda! viernes, 12 julio to domingo, 14 julio

(I'm exhausted and have an entire weekend to type so this post will be bullet points for now.)

[Friday, July 12]

- Breakfast with Alfonso, we watched San Fermín
- I gave a presentation speech in class about my weekend in Madrid
- We worked on pronunciation in class
- We went at 11 to Plaza Zocodover to meet our Valencia group: Colby, Alex, Mariah, Olivia, Emily, Sophie, Conner, Zach, and I.
- I got a tomato and queso empanada.
- We then got a bus to Madrid; Colby and I talked about families on the way.
- On the Metro in Madrid, the line we needed was stopped for some reason and it was very crowded and hot, and there was a baby in a stroller right in front of me.
- When we got to the train station we literally had to sprint through security, and down the terminal. We were in coche 29 which was one of the farthest cars from the stairs. We took a photo of everyone finally in their seat as the train started to move. Bones was on the TV so I listened to it in Spanish.
- In the train station we got a map and then walked to the Metro.
- We checked into the Red Nest Hostel, and then went around the corner to Alfonso el Magnánimo. I split a Margarita pizza with Alex.
- We then headed to the beach via metro. It was absolutely gorgeous! The Mediterranean Sea is bath water temperature and the sand is almost creamy. I floated with everyone and just enjoyed the relaxing experience.
-We spilt into two groups at some point and one group swam out farther. And the they split up again because two people wanted to swim to the dock halfway down the beach. I definitely dropped into camp counselor mode and inner panicked but was still a little pissed. After that I wasn't too interested in going too far out to sea and collected sea shells on the beach.
- There was an impressive sand castle right off the board walk.
- We went to the hostel to change out of our wet clothes.
- We wandered into the city and eventually found a chicken place for dinner. I was so hungry I didn't even care about the bones. And for dessert we found a helado shop.
- We then spent the next hour looking for a place to hang out but everywhere was closed.

[Saturday, July 13]

- "Slept in" to 9:30! We then went over to Starbucks a few doors down to wait for the rest of the group. I had a chai tea latte in a ceramic mug- things we don't have back in Lincoln. While we were sitting there, a parade of Mr. Bean cars drove down the street in a parade. It was hilarious to see all of these little cars with dinky honks.
-We then went to a Nike store because we were hoping the rebajas would be helpful in adding to our Nike collections, but they weren't all that great.
- We stopped for cupcakes and I got Dulce con Leche.
- We stopped at El Corte Ingles for food. The grocery store is located in the basement and the upper levels are a department store. We found a water jug that was 6.5 liters and weighed as much as a baby- his name was Joaquin because it was the name on the label. We also got pan, chips, and cookies.
- We finally made it to the beach about 2 or so. We put on sunscreen before heading out to the waves and laying out but we all got really burnt. I took a 30 minute nap at one point so that didn't help the not-getting-sunburnt cause.

This is my expression right after getting shocked by a wave...

Our group... minus Colby the photographer

- At 6:30 we found a restaurant with paella that had a view of the beach and ordered three paellas and sangria. We had lobster, veggie/chicken, and seafood. I tried a couple of the shellfish and the chicken but mostly appreciated the rice and veggie mix.
- At 7:30 (on time for once) we headed back to the hostal for our luggage and then headed to the train station.
- We ended up in the wrong station, but we did have time to change into dry clothes. We got to the correct train station with about 15 minutes to spare. We were in coche 5 this time which was closer to the ticket checking station and security. I had a row to myself and fell asleep with headphones connected to the train's "radio" and was woken up to Hedwig's Theme.
- In Madrid we took the Metro back to the bus station but missed the directo so we had to take the midnight pueblo bus- which stopped at smaller towns on the way to Toledo. By this time I was exhausted. We still had Joaquin the water jug and his name became Joaquin Javier José Juan Jiménez. It was the result of a long day.
- We got back to Toledo at about 2am on Sunday and had been in Valencia for 26 or so hours (not counting travel). When I got back to the casa I had the place to myself and realized how burned I'd gotten at the beach.

[Sunday, July 14]

- I woke up after about 4.5 hours of sleep to go to Candeleda with the group excursion. I got a seat to myself and added an extra 1.5 hours to my sleep bank. I have perfected the sleeping-on-a-bus position so only one small fraction of my body is uncomfortable- it's all in how you brace your legs against the seat in front of you and the wall.
- We stopped at the Cuevas de Águila and toured the caves. It was cold inside and the stalagmites and stalactites were amazing. If you used your imagination you could see toros, people, hands, corn, and a whole lot of different things.
- We then took a small break at a natural pool before lunch. Since we didn't have a whole lot of time we just walked the rocks upstream. I was extremely thankful for my Chacos and their ability to be worn everywhere.

This could be a Chaco advertisement right?

- We ate lunch not far from the piscina natural. I had paella, and then this weird chicken concoction. We made some of our own sangria using the wine and the bubbly water they gave us to drink. And for dessert we had helado and café con leche. When they poured the café it was really thick and almost pitch black but really good.
- We then went back to the lagoon to swim and it took a while for me to adjust to the cold water but it did feel good on my sunburn! It was fun just sitting and relaxing in a natural pool of super clear water that was clean and it's anything like the streams in Nebraska.

Our Candeleda group- from all over the world! 

- On the way back to Toledo I slept again and then went back to my casa where I curled up with my computer to type this post. I turned the TV on and cat napped.
- For dinner I had a hamburger, salad with amazing tomatoes, pan, and plain yogurt.

It's crazy to think that in a week I'll be 20 years old and back in Nebraska!
Love you all!