Day 61

I have 5 minutes left at this internet cafe, so lets see how fast I can type. We left Madrid on Saturday and flew into Rome. We left Rome the next day and flew into Venice. We spend the night there one night, and we are now in Florence for two nights. Next, we go to Rome for the remainder of this vacation. We have taken so many buses and trains and airplanes, and I am sick and tired of public transportation. Italy is a little less organized and dirtier than Spain, but I still like it (even though I prefer madrid). We took a gandola (sp?) ride last night and it was so much fun. Well, times up, but I will write again and give more details next time. BTW, for the last few days, I have had some kind of pasta or pizza for lunch and Italian ice cream for supper. I could get used to this. Hasta Luego.

Day 58

My mom got here about 10:00 this morning. I skipped my second class to meet her at the hotel. We went out for a little while and we walked around the center of town for a little while, grabbed something to eat, then went back to the hotel to take a nap. Then I showed her where I live here. Then she slept while I packed for Italy. We are going to have so much fun! I felt so bad at lunch because I ordered us two of Spain´s main dishes, paella and tortilla. Paella is rice with seafood and a sauce, and tortilla is a potato omlette. She didn´t like either one of them. :( So we compromised for supper. We went to McDonalds and then went and ate chocolate con churros. Think fried bread with chocolate dipping sauce. And now we are back at the hotel.

Day 57

This past weekend, I went to Almeria in Andalucia (southern part of Spain). There is a couple down there that are missionaries for CBF, which is the organization that my church belongs to. Their names are Joel and Tiffne and they have 3 children, a 7 year-old daughter and twin 4 year-old sons. I had a blast. I got there on Saturday morning after a 7 hour bus ride (I left Madrid at midnight). I got to see the Mediterrean Sea, and put my feet in it. The mountains are right against the water, and it was so beautiful. I couldn't help buy thinking how great God is that he can create something so amazing. Then, we went to Mi Casa es Tu Casa, which is in Roquetas. It's a place people who come to visit can stay. They have rooms like they would at their house. There is a princess room, a room themed for the movie Cars, a flower room, and a master bedroom. They just got it about 2 weeks ago, so I was the first person to stay there. They took me around Roquetas which has a lot of African immigrants. A thing that I liked was that people that are here without papers aren't called "illegals." They are called "irregulars." On Saturday night, I went with Joel to a meeting between some of the local pastors of Roquetas for a prayer meeting. They tell the group what problems they are having, people that are sick, stuff like that, and it is a time to reflect and pray. It was in the Romanian language, and a guy translated it into Spanish and English. I also tried Romanian food afterwards. I don't exactly know what it was, but I think it was rice and corn wrapped in a cabbage leaf. It looked a little like a Chinese egg roll. It was delicious. Then on Saturday, we went to church. After that, they invited a few people from the church to eat African food. They try to help as many people as they can, so they sometimes pay people to cook food. It was rice, with this chicken and onion sauce that was absolutely delicious. I am going to try to attempt to make it when I get back to the states. I got to ask Joel and Tiffne anything and everything I wanted to, and that was nice. They are from Texas, and I was quite excited that they said y'all. Tiffne also let me go with her and two other ladies from the church to visit a woman that just had a baby. They took her a stroller because she already has a one year-old and can't carry them both by herself. So many people here are poor, but they are so generous. We meet somebody, and they offer you to come to their house and eat with them. Someone that has nothing is willing to give the little they do have to strangers. I think it is custom for the Africans. I was also jealous of Joel and Tiffne's daughter, Megan. They have lived in Spain for almost three years, and Megan goes to public school here in Madrid. She speaks fluent Andalucian Spanish. It is a little hard to understand Andalucian because the s sound is th. So I had a 7 year-old be my translator. It was awesome. She also taught me a couple new words, and I taught her a few jump rope songs. They also had a Halloween party for me Sunday afternoon because I had mentioned before that I was going to miss dressing up and going trick-or-treating. The kids drew me pictures and gave me candy. I felt so welcome the whole time. They invited me to come back whenever I can, and hopefully I will be able to. After I left, it was another 7 hour bus ride, but this time I had to share my seat with someone. And it was freezing when I got back to Madrid! I had gotten used to the warm weather of the south to just go a little north and it be 35 degrees. Awful. I also have two new house mates. An English professor moved in two weeks ago and is leaving this Saturday. His name is Steve and he has the typical English professor and I just always want to give him hugs. He is so cute! And a German lady came this past Saturday and is staying for one more week. Her name is Burga and she speaks no English and only a little Spanish, so we get to play charades a lot. My mom is flying in tomorrow for a week, and I am so excited. We are going to Italy on Saturday for a week. We are visiting Rome, Venice, and Florence, and it is going to be so much fun. I can't wait. I hit the half-way mark a few days ago, I think. Time is flying by so fast and I can't believe it! There is so much I still want to do but won't have time for, but I just keep telling myself that I am coming back. I am taking the equivalent of 16 hours here. Two grammar classes for an hour and a half each Monday through Friday. Education twice a week for three hours. Art twice a week for an hour and a half, and DELE twice a week for an hour and a half. I get done at 5 Monday-Thursday and at 1 on Friday. I don't like DELE. Thanks Carlos, if you're reading this. (Spanish prof at Lander). Art is interesting but I wish we could go more in-depth instead of just learning a little about each artist and a few of his paintings. I am learning so much in my education class. It is a class on how to teach Spanish to foreigners. I am learning so many practical things that I will definitely be able to use if I become a Spanish teacher. Also, this experience is making me think about what I want to do with my life. I have so many options but I still don't know what I should do or where I should go. I guess I will just have to keep trusting that I am following the path that God wants me to go. I think this is long enough for one posting, and I will have to write a lot when I get back from Italy. So, hasta luego. :)

Day 48

On Friday, Keri, Rachelle, and I went to a small town called Cuenca. It is known for its hanging houses. The houses literally are hanging off a cliff! Amazing. We had to walk across this 400 year old bridge to get there, but as we were walking up the hill, guess what a beautiful part of the scenery was? A McDonalds. A beautiful landscape, mountains, trees, and a McDonalds sign. What is this world coming to? It was a 2 1/2 hour bus ride both ways and we were in the city for 4 hours. Just in case if you can't do the math, we were on the bus longer than we were in the city. On the way back, we met some people and it turns out we have mutual friends because they went to the same school here that I go to. Small world. They invited us to a barbeque on Saturday night and it was a lot of fun. There were people there from England, Taiwan, France, Italy, and the United States. There were so many languages flying around but it was fun. There was chicken, hamburgers, shrimp, vegetables, salad, pasta, dessert. I had a blast. Then on Sunday I went to church. I attempted to go to Sunday School but I got there just in time for worship. I went out of the wrong exit of the metro, and between yahoo maps and my "wonderful" sense of direction, I went in circles for about an hour. I got there finally and am glad I went. It is an international church in English. I think someone said that there were members from 40 countries. Amazing. I was about to leave, when somebody ran out, grabbed me, and took me to the kitchen to have coffee. She was a sweet lady. That gave me a chance to meet some people. They are all so kind and sincere. Then yesterday we went to the bull fight. I will save the details but let's just say that I will never go to another one again. It was cruel in my opinion. If you want to see one, look on youtube. School today, not much to talk about, but I did learn something interesting about Spain. Instead of Friday the 13th, the unlucky day is Tuesday the 13th, which is today. And in exactly one month, I take the DELE test, which is on a Friday. Lucky me (get the irony?!). I have a new housemate. His name is Steve and he is a 50-something year old English professor. I made a fool of myself yesterday at supper because I thought he was my senora's boyfriend. (I thought he was coming next week.) From some of the questions I asked him, he must think I am a stupid American. Oh well. Speaking of which, Europe loves Obama. And there is going to be a president of Europe, and Tony Blair is running for it, which is Europe's "George Bush." I don't know how that will work out, but I hope the best for Europe.

Day 45

The study abroad director and his wife took Erica and me out to eat on Tuesday. We went to Mercado de la Reina and had tapas. Erica and I would have been on time except for the fact that I can't read a map. I need to go back to second grade. On Thursday, Matt made nachos and we went to a place near his house and had a "tex-mex night." It was fun. Then yesterday, we went to Vips to eat and to plan what we wanted to do today. We decided to go to Cuenca. Cuenca is this cute little town about 2 or 2,5 hours from Madrid. We left by bus at 10 and got there at 12. We went to see the casas colgadas (hanging houses). These houses literally hang off the cliff. It was beautiful!! We walked across a bridge and I wouldn't have walked over it if I had known how old it was. I think from the 1600s. We also walked around a lot and did pretty much nothing. We purposely did not look at the map so we could wander around for awhile. We found a bunch of places to look at the mountains and hills. This town did not have a flat place anywhere! We were either walking up an incline of 30 degrees, or down the same angle. I got my workout for the day. I burnt all those calories just to drink a liter of coke and an icecream cone, but it was mandatory. I also learned this week that the average number of kids in Spain is 1,2 per person. In the states, it's 2,5. Normally the only time I see couples with more than one kid is when the kids are twins. I haven't seen a family with more than 3 kids either. The parents are also much older.

Day 41

I met with my intercambio person today. It is a program where a native English who is learning Spanish and a native Spanish speaker who is learning English are paired together. She showed me around an area of Madrid called Tribunal. I had never been there before and it was really cool. I saw the oldest pharmacy in Madrid. We talked a lot. She has a little lisp so I could understand most of what she said, but sometimes I had to get her to repeat something 3 times. It was kind of funny. And she speaks really quiet. Her name is Elena and she is studying cinematograhpy. We will meet again next week, but I like her a lot. She is on the same level of English that I am on Spanish, so we feel each other's frustrations. We went to a restaraunt. Then I turned around, and there were 2 dogs just sitting right beside me. Elena said that wasn't normal but the owner was picking up food so the dogs were in the restaraunt for about 10 minutes just sitting there or wandering around. There are several other things I have noticed here. Trash is picked up at 2 in the morning because there is hardly any traffic at that time. And it is very loud. Also, when someone tells you to be somewhere at a certain time, coming 15 minutes late is still early (unfortunatly, school does not work like that). I am slowly starting to notice little things that I want to remember so if any of this is weird, I apologize.

Day 40

I really need to start doing things on Sunday. I normally just catch up on sleep and do homework, but how boring is that! I just did school stuff all last week. Nothing exciting. Then on Friday, Megan, Rachelle, Kari, and I met to plan what trips we wanted to take for the remaining weekends. We have Salamanca, Granada, Barcelona, and Sevilla on the list so far. We went out to a little place near Kari's place and ate crepes. I had a pizza one, then we all shared a chocolate one. I have a new favorite dessert. It is a sweet tortilla with chocolate sauce, chocolate ice cream and whip cream. We spread it all together, folded it, and ate it like a pizza, well as best as we could. Then on Saturday, the same 4 girls went to a little town about an hour south of Madrid called Aranjuez. It was a cute little town. We went to the Royal Palace, and a couple of gardens. About every street had a store selling wedding gowns, and we got to see two weddings. We also walked and saw the outside of a bull ring. Then we went out and watched a futbol (American soccer) on tv. Madrid won. Where we went was close to the stadium, so a lot of people came after the game to celebrate. I didn't stay much longer because the cigarette smoke was starting to bother me. Then on Sunday, we went to El Rastro, the largest flea market in Spain. It had literally everything anyone would ever want. I bought a paif of leggings for 3 euros, 6 socks for 3, a black belt for 3, and 2 scarves for 3. It was so cheap! I am going to get almost all of my Christmas presents from there. My dad was jealous. We used to go "yard selling" and to the flea market every Saturday, so when I told hiim Iwas going to one of this size, he told me to take lots of pictures and buy lots of things. We got separated after about 30 minutes, so Matt (American from Boston who goes to school with me) and I went one way. and Megan, Rachelle, and Kari went another way. We never did meet up that morning. I got back just in time for lunch. I am starting to get used to the food. I wonder if I will get back to the states and think everything that I eat there is weird. Who knows. Now time for some observations. Parents take their kids out and let them stay out late. I went to bed at 8 when I was little, and kids here get to stay out until 12 or 1 in the morning. I don't know why. There are also strollers that looks like a carriage on wheels. Very strange. Everyone wears scarves, even though its not cold. And red doesn't mean stop here in Spain. Red means look both ways, and if a car is coming, oh well, they'll stop. I have been made fun of by for actually waiting for the pedestrian light to turn green. I had to go buy comtact solution today, and the stupid bottle cost 15 euros, which is about 25 bucks! I was so mad, but that is something I had to have. There is a store, Corte Ingles (it has the word English in it, figure that) and it is 6 stories tall. It is the equivalent to a very expensive Wal-Mart. Oh, I don't know if I mentioned this yet, but I dropped my phone in the toilet sometime last week. I had to get a new one, because it wouldn't turn on. I am going through money like crazy, but I am trying not to worry about it. I have also started planning my break trip. My mom is coming over here in about 2 1/2 weeks to stay for a week because I don't have school. I think we going to Italy. I could care less where we go, because it's Europe and everything is awesome. I would actually consider moving here one day. I absolutely love everything about it. Well, except for the traffic. There are a few things I miss here. Dr, Pepper, sweet tea, taking baths and using as much hot water as I want, my car, and of course, my family and friends. I can't believe how fast the time is going by. I might actually be sad to leave. I never thought that that would be possible. If I don't come back to live, I will definitely come back for vacation. There is so much I want to do and see that I don't have time for now. I will be one of those people who works to save money to travel, goes broke, then works again just to go somewhere else.