Monday January 21, 2008
I had something, for the first time since I got here that I didn’t like. Today Padre made lunch for us, and it was basically canned vegetables with vinaigrette, oil, salt, and pepper. Green beans, peas, carrots, and the worst of all: brussel sprouts. I had never tried brussel sprouts, so I tried them and I thought I was going to be sick. It was like eating soggy lettuce, only worse kind of like seaweed. Anyway, that was the only thing worth writing about today, and it’s late, so more to come later….
Wednesday January 23, 2008
So not much of interest happened yesterday, and not really much today, but there are a few things that I have learned. First of all, I learned what to say if I’m in trouble in a Spanish-speaking country. “¡Socorro!” is the signal that you need help, so heaven forbid something should ever happen, I will know what to scream. Second, something I’ve noticed over the past week or so is the placement of wedding bands on people here. Some of them wear it on their left ring finger like we do, and some on their right. So yesterday Brooke and I asked our Padre about it, and it turns out that there is a method to this madness. In Spain, a “novio” or “novia” (depending if you are a boy or girl) means that you are fairly serious with that person, not just casually liking them, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting married either. Anyway, if that novio gives you a ring, you wear it on your left ring finger to signify that you are taken. If you happen to get married, then the wedding band goes on your right finger to show that you are taken for good. In the U.S. if you get a ring, usually the girl just wears it on her left finger, so it’s interesting to me that there is such a significant purpose and message as to which finger you wear it on. Oh, the third thing I learned yesterday was that money is SO not the same here in Spain. The euro just doesn’t go as far as an American dollar. The exchange rate right now is about 1.5€ for one American dollar. Everything is a little bit more expensive here. However, when Brooke and I went to put minutes on our phone, from 10€ we got 300 minutes at $0.05/minute to call other Movistar phones like ours in the program. For Spain this really isn’t bad, and the 300 minutes will probably last us the whole trip. For a movie ticket it’s about 5 or 6€, which translates to almost $12 for a movie ticket. But to get a rather large chocolate covered churro like I did last week, it was only 1€, which is super cheap (about $1.50).
Anyway, I think that’s about all that’s been exciting other than going to school. Oh, except I finally saw our Madre’s store “Vanila”, and it’s actually bigger and nicer than I imagined it would be. We thought it was a gift shop for tourists or something, but it’s actually more like a home furnishings store, and they have quite a bit of stuff, nice stuff. And the other thing I did today was go into Madrid, and we saw the San Jerónimo Real cathedral/church which is right in between the Prado museum and an entrance to Buen Retiro Park. It was really big, elaborate, and beautiful. ..much bigger than the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake. There were a couple of kids in our group who thought it would be kind of fun to go into a confessional and confess their sins. So that was cool I guess, I didn’t do it, I wasn’t sure if it was respectful or not, I wouldn’t want someone to do something like that at a temple.
Thursday January 24, 2008
Today was mainly my day to kind of relax before the trip to Toledo tomorrow. This morning I had Spanish 106, and then afterwards, I updated my blog pictures, and then I went running with Kaitlyn. When I came home we ate lunch, which was okay I guess. We had a mixture of vegetables that I don’t really want to know what they were, and those cordon bleu things, and pork, and peaches for postre. After that, I was pretty sleepy, so I took a siesta, did homework, and packed for tomorrow. That’s about it, everything else was pretty insignificant. On the bright side, I ran about 1.3miles today, and I haven’t been running since October I think, so that was really impressive to me.
I keep forgetting to write about some of the differences in the culture here. One of the things that really bugs Brooke and I is the placement of the crosswalks; instead of being at the corner like they are in the U.S. they are about 15-20 feet from the corner due to the round-abouts which are pretty much everywhere.
Another thing that’s funny about the culture is operating hours of stores and businesses. Because of the normal routine of a Spaniard, not only do many stores not open until at least 8 a.m., but pretty much everything closes around 2p.m. because of the siesta, and then opens back up again around 5p.m. That’s something else: time. Everything is in military time here, and there were actually some people in my group who didn’t know how to tell military time until this Monday the 21st.
Now for some fun facts. I always thought that television was a huge fad in America, but it’s even more of a big deal here in Spain. Televisions are on ALL THE TIME, and people aren’t even necessarily watching it. Basically it’s there for background noise. But if someone goes into the kitchen, almost the first thing they do is turn on the t.v., and it will stay on until you leave the house, or whatever. On the subject of electricity, that is super different here too. As Americans, we are used to being able to keep all of our appliances plugged in all the time, or even using the power cords to enlarge the number of appliances we can use at once. But here, you can’t have too many things going at once because it will blow the circuit. For example, you can’t have the washer and stove on at the same time, or even two burners going at the same time. I don’t know how they do it, I am personally used to doing at least two or three things at once, but that’s pretty much impossible here.
Finally: mullets. In American culture, a big fad in schools and across the country right now is the Goth look. Here, it’s the mullet. Everywhere you go you can find at least a handful of mullet-sporting Spaniards. The other day as we were coming back from Madrid and about to get off the train, I looked out the window, and low and behold, was a group of teenage boys (about seven or eight of them) who all had mullets. There are some people in our Study Abroad group who have decided to dedicate a percentage of their pictures to mullets, and we intentionally try to find them whenever we go out. A few that we have seen we weren’t really sure if it was a boy or girl, but citizens as young as three to those in their 20s have gone to the mullet.
Well, I have to get up at six to leave for Toledo, which should be awesome by the way, so buenas noches!!!
Saturday January 26, 2008
So, pretty much Toledo was awesome. It’s was prettier than Madrid, and it looks like a postcard only in real life. We left yesterday morning at about 7a to get to the Shumway’s to help get them and their kids off. Then after the train to the Atocha station in Madrid, it was a half hour ride on the bullet train to Toledo. Once we got there, we hiked up to our hotel from the train station. That was kinda rough because the geography of Toledo is situated so that the middle of the city is in the middle of a large hill, and ¾ of the city is surrounded by a river (which I conveniently can’t remember the name of). Once we got to our hostel, we put all of our stuff into one of two rooms because we couldn’t check into our own until a couple hours later. Each room has anywhere from two to four beds, a bathroom, and closet, but the rooms are really small and cramped.
Right off the bat we went to the Cathedral while we were waiting to check into our rooms, and it was very massive. The Cathedral of Toledo is the third largest to the one in Seville and one in Milan. We weren’t allowed to take pictures, so it’s hard to make you understand the enormity of it. But the walls of the chapels went up and up probably more than 50 feet, and every inch was covered in decorative gold plated “stuff”. I don’t even know how to describe it, it’s like sculptures and figurines of angels, the Apostles, the Virgin Mary, Jesus, and anything else you could think of pretty much. A lot of marble is used as well, and because it’s such a large edifice the whole thing was absolutely freezing! There were people who had on not only sweaters, but winter coats, gloves, scarves, and anything else they could find to keep warm. In the center of the Cathedral is the Coro (Choir) where the main organ is, seats where people would gather to listen to the choir. There’s a large marble sculpture of Jesus and Mary and the angels in this section and it’s considered one of the most beautiful sculptures ever. Then on the east end of the Cathedral is this portion of the wall that has angels and gold spear-like things coming out of the wall. Above this sculpture is a skylight where a hole was cut into the building after it was built to allow the light to come in. So in the middle of the day it looks like the light from heaven itself is streaming in on the angels.
We also went to a Jewish synagogue (Sinagoga del Transito) after the Cathedral, and it was much different than the Cathedral. Everything about the Catholics churches is elaborate and of the finest quality, but the Jewish keep their architecture very simple and plain, but with both religions, it’s easy to see that the people have faith in what they believe, and that is a very admirable quality.
Other than that we basically would walk around the city getting lost in order to find things. Most of the streets look the same, and it’s kind of confusing compared to a community like Provo which is on the grid system. The streets are really narrow with the buildings extremely close and barely large enough for one car to go through. We constantly had to move over to the side to allow the cars to get by, but that’s normal because the streets are sidewalks as well, so the drivers are used to having to wait for pedestrians. While we were walking, we would stop in shops every once in a while to take a gander at what they had. Toledo is a prime tourist attraction, and there are dozens of shops to choose from, but you have to be careful, or you could get ripped off. One of the things that Toledo is famous for is their swords and steel. Basically if you go to Toledo, it’s almost guaranteed that you will buy some sort of sword/dagger/metal object. Also, a lot of the stores sell jewelry that’s made from this black material and then with gold designs on it. They are really pretty, but they use the black-gold style on things like decorative bowls/plates, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and other things too.
After a long first day in Toledo, some of us got up this morning to attend Mass at the Cathedral at 9am. I’ve been to Catholic weddings and funerals before, so I was already kind of familiar with how they do things, but I wanted to go to Mass once in Spain to hear it in Spanish and to try to get a little better understanding of their culture, because the Catholic church is monumental in Spanish culture due to the Spanish Inquisition with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel. It was interesting to see and hear especially since it was in Spanish, and like the Jewish, I can tell that for a lot of these people their religion is key to their life.
Once Mass got over with, we had to go back to the hotel to get our stuff out of our rooms so they could get them cleaned for tonight’s guests, but we left our stuff all together again like when we first got there. Then we all met up again to go on a walk around the perimeter of the city, which I would say is probably a good three to five miles. It’s really hard to describe this, because the grandeur of the city is so breathtaking everywhere you look, and words are so cheap and pictures don’t do it justice. The one thing I can say is that there’s something about Toledo that just makes you fall in love with it. I don’t know if it’s the people, the food, the buildings, or maybe all of it together, but everything about Toledo makes you feel like you’re walking around in a dream or something, only it’s a reality.
Finally: the food! Everything was old school except for one thing, I finally had a kebab. Now when I say kebab I don’t mean I ate food off a stick. They have the meat rotating on a metal turning oven thing, and then they slice off pieces to put in the kebab. It looks kind of like a burrito made with pita-like bread, and they stuff it with shredded lettuce, some sort of sauce, sometimes cheese, and your choice of meat. The meat can be chicken, pork, lamb…whatever, it just depends on the restaurant. I had a lamb one, and it was heavenly. The other thing that I tried new here was mazapán, or marzipan. This is really hard to describe as well, when someone tried telling me about it I thought ‘eww, gross’, but it’s actually SOOO good. The only word I can think of to give you a texture visual is that it’s like a paste, but basically it’s straight sugar with almond flavoring, and because it’s straight sugar, they can squeeze it and mold it into different shapes and it retains the shape very easily. We went and bought a little box for 6€, which had about 16 pieces inside, from a nunnery. But you aren’t allowed inside, you go up to this window that has bars on it, and you ring the buzzer, and then a nun will come to the window and you tell her what you want, she goes and gets it, and you pay her. But you aren’t allowed to take pictures of them, they want to be ‘away from the world’ I guess is how you would explain it. Anyway, it was really good, they’re soft and doughy and they don’t ever harden up unless they’re really, really old.
So we got home around 8pm, and we showered, ate dinner, and after that we have crashed because we were so worn out from the trip. But I knew that I had to write in my journal tonight or I wouldn’t have much motivation tomorrow. It’s only a little after 10pm right now, so technically it’s really early still, but we are very worn out. Now that I’ve talked about Toledo though, I can talk about other things.
I figured out a way to talk to my parents for free. There’s this online calling program called Skype and it’s getting to be pretty popular. You can download it for free and then you can call anyone, anywhere who has Skype for free. You can even call regular telephone numbers for like $0.017/minute, which is ridiculously cheap. I downloaded it last Sunday and I told my parents to do it too, so that way I don’t have to buy calling cards, and I went and bought a headphone set too, so now I’m really ready to go.
Sunday January 27, 2008
After such a tiring trip in Toledo, I came home last night and slept for about ten hours, which was amazing. We had church this morning like usual, and surprisingly, I understood more this week than I have any other week. I’m at home now, and we are going to eat soon, and then tonight there is a baptism of this guy from Nigeria, and then we are going to the Shumway’s for open house.
I remembered something else that I forgot to mention about the cities. In lots of big cities, you see quite a bit of graffiti, and it’s common enough that it’s kind of accepted as a part of the culture. Well, when we first got to Spain, the first thing that really caught my attention was how much graffiti there is not just in the big cities like Madrid and Toledo, but in the little towns like Alcalá as well. Everywhere you go, not just in the allies or the ‘bad’ parts of town, there is graffiti that covers the walls from top to bottom. There doesn’t seem to be any efforts to clean it off, but I’m sure even if they did it would take forever, and I don’t know how profitable it would be before the gangs and stuff would come right back and do more.
Other than that, nothing else is all that new, I’m thinking of getting my hair cut soon because it’s driving me nuts, and I need a change. Plus I haven’t cut it since November, so it’s about time for a haircut. My friend Susie got one last week, and it’s totally European, but it looks really good. Anyway, once again, I will add pictures to the blog later in the week so I can sort through which ones are going to be the most beneficial for my viewers. I have about 150 pics to choose from. Hmmm, this could take a while…
Monday, January 28, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
New Pics
European drivers are amazing. I hope you can see in this picture that they park so close, that these two cars are actually touching at the bumber. No matter where you go, cars are piled on top of each other. But at the same time, hardly ever will you see vans or SUVs, in fact I don´t think I´ve seen a single suburban the whole time I´ve been here. Tiny cars are how you say "de moda" or "in style".
This is the Fountain of Castilla in Madrid.
I´m standing in front of an entrance to Buen Retiro Park, which is behind the Prado, and goes for several blocks. The other picture to the left is a street with little shops, a lot with books. I even found a copy of "The Importance of Being Earnest" in Spanish.
This is inside the San Jeronimo church, also behind the Prado.
All of these pictures are some that I took yesterday when we were walking around Madrid. If I knew the names of all of them, then I would tell you, but I don´t, so I´m not. :)
This is a picture I took a couple days ago of that fountain right by my house. Every night the lights come on, and the fountain looks like this.
This is the Plaza de Cervantes in Alcala right by my school. It´s pretty big, and at various times of the day you can see people taking a "paseo".
This was a small group of us that went into Madrid yesterday. We try not to go with the whole group because we tend to draw attention to ourselves. 
This is what you see right when you come out of the Atocha train station in Madrid. It´s like the center stop right by the Prado Museum, Fountain of Neptune, Agriculture Building, etc.These little "smart cars" are super popular in European countries.
Check out these trash cans, you don´t have to touch the gross lid, you just use your foot to press down on the petal, and wha-la! It opens, germ-free!
Me and my friend Kaitlyn My roommate Brooke, with a broken wrist.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
My First Week
Okay so since I haven’t written in my blog for a week, what I’ve done is taken portions of letters that I’ve written and sections out my journal entries, because they are pretty descriptive of everything I’ve done over the past week. Enjoy!!
Sunday January 13, 2008
Since yesterday, a lot has happened that I feel like I should write about. Today was our first day in church, and boy was it overwhelming. Everything was in Spanish for three hours, and I felt pretty overwhelmed. We had Relief Society first, and then Sunday school, and then Sacrament. In Relief Society, I could understand the majority of what they were saying, but after that I had a really hard time focusing, and so I didn’t really get as much out of the other two meetings. But I’m noticing that my Spanish is getting better and better every day. The days go kind of slow, but I think that’s because I don’t really have much to do so far. Today, we were supposed to go with Madre’s sister, Ana, to church at 10:15 am, but Brooke’s alarm clock didn’t go off, so we got ready in about five minutes after Racquel came in and told us what time it was. Then after church we came home, and Madre and Padre had gotten home from the hospital, and Madre was making lunch for us. We had pork “breasts” I guess you could call them, but they were more like pork chops without the bones; with mashed potatoes only much smoother, bread, and salad with crab and tomatoes, cheese, and some hard-boiled egg. Everything has been really good so far. I haven’t eaten anything I didn’t like. We’ve eaten calamari, tuna, crab, pork…pretty much everything except chicken which is really popular in America.
Monday January 14, 2008
Today was our day to get acquainted with Alcalíngua. This morning we had to go take a test to determine where we are in Spanish, and let me tell you, that was one very hard test. Most of it was way over my head, or how I like to say “sobre mi cabeza”. The scores don’t really matter, but it made me realize how much I really have to learn. We didn’t have any classes today except for one, and that was our religion one. He made it sound like it’s pretty much impossible to get an A, but lots of teachers say that, so I’m not sure if I should be worried or not. I think that with the effort that I put into my classes, I will be just fine. He, like everyone else, spoke in Spanish the entire lecture, but I could understand pretty much everything he was saying. He doesn’t talk quite as fast as most other people most of the time, so I think that made it easier. But even so, I really understood what he was saying, and we were talking about how important it is to know about your history in order to know about yourself. I actually really like him a lot, but there were some girls in the back talking about how crazy he is, and boring, but I didn’t think he was either.
Other than that, today we went around Alcalá a little bit for a tour, and we went to the mall to try to change money and to buy slippers. But we couldn’t change money at the Santander in the mall for some reason, so I’ll have to do it tomorrow. Tomorrow, I have my first Spanish 106 class…and I think it will be fun. There’s about six of us from our group that are taking it. I officially have five classes, but only two that seem to be really intensive, and those are Spanish, and History 202.
Tuesday January 15, 2008
Today around 4:15pm a bunch of us had decided to go into Madrid to look around a little bit, and to get a better feel for the city. We went to the Puerta del Sol, and a few people went to the Plaza Mayor, but I didn’t. Mostly the girls I was with wanted to look in the stores, and I personally wasn’t all that interested in the stores. I think we came to see the history, not to shop, I can do that in the states. But I figured it wasn’t really a big deal, so I didn’t protest, but the next time we go in, I probably will say something. It was kind of miserable because it was especially cold today. This morning, you could tell that it had rained and it was chillier than any of the other days all day long. But while we were there we went to a little pastry shop, andI had my first pastelito from Spain. It was amazing!!! It had chocolate filling kind of like frosting, not the pudding-like stuff that you see in the U.S., and the outside was kind of like a croissant topped with crystallized powdered sugar almost. Super yummy, and I actually had two of them, but afterwards my stomach was not very happy with me. I also tried the hot chocolate. Brooke got a cup of it, but because it’s so rich, she didn’t want all of it. It’s basically like drinking a melted chocolate bar, but it tasted really good.
Wednesday January 16, 2008
I finally took a siesta today!! I was absolutely exhausted when I got home from school, and I haven’t taken a single siesta since I got into Spain. I slept for about an hour and a half I think, but it’s okay because I didn’t get much sleep the past two nights. My classes today consisted of History 202, and my conversation lab which ended at 12:30pm. Brooke still had class until one thirty, but I needed to go buy some slippers or zapatías so I went home alone. Last night I changed some money into Euros finally, and I got to spend them today. I got two pairs for 5.95€, and they are both really cute and comfy, but one of them is for my sister Jordyn since her birthday is this month. Before I went to the centro comercial, my friend Kaitlyn had come with me since neither of us had class, and on the way to the centro, we were kinda hungry so we stopped by a panadería and bought a loaf of bread. Not like the bread you see in the states, more like french bread where it’s really soft in the middle. Then when I got home, the only one home was Padre, and he was getting lunch ready for everyone. We had this soup-like mixture of lentejas (beans), onions, red pepper, and sausage. It sounds kind of funny, but it was actually really good, and the bread tasted good dipped into it. Afterwards, I had a Fiji apple for dessert or “postre”.
Over the past few days, even though I’ve been pretty occupied with classes, and getting acquainted with Spain, I’m kind of homesick. It’s so weird because when I got to Provo, I was only homesick occasionally, and it was only once in a great while. I think it might be because I knew I was going to see my family frequently, and so not seeing or talking to them regularly wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t think I would really be homesick here either because of that, but I’m also not talking to my family or texting them on a regular basis like I was before, and I’m about 6,000 miles away instead of just 600. I mean, I don’t think it’s going to affect my studies, but I’m definitely more emotionally fragile than before
Friday January 18, 2008
Well, pretty much today has been the longest day of my life. I seriously haven’t had time to sit down all day long. Yesterday was pretty laid back though and I didn’t really do anything except go to Spanish and come home to eat lunch, take a siesta, and to do homework. But lunch yesterday was pretty much the most amazing thing I’ve ever eaten in my whole life. It was a soup made with red peppers, onions, carrots, chopped up pieces of steak, and then they fried diced potatoes and you put those in there too. So after all that you eat it with the bread, and I absolutely loved it. It was definitely my favorite meal so far. Then today for lunch we had cauliflower with something sort of like a hamburger patty. You mash the cauliflower up with your fork and then you put olive oil on it with salt and pepper, and it sort of has the consistency of mashed potatoes but tastes like cauliflower. That was really yummy too. And for dinner we had tortilla de patata which is kind of like an omelet, only not runny and only made with egg, potatoes, and onion. Oh, and you eat bread with that too. We eat bread with every meal actually.
So anyway, today I went to Alcalíngua to apply for a short term loan so my classes wouldn’t get deleted, went to the Shumway’s to print forms off to release information to my parents, back to Alcalíngua to fax them but couldn’t and had to pay 4,80 € to fax it from the post office, went to the bank with Brooke, back to the Shumway’s, and home for lunch. Then right after lunch we left for Madrid to do one of the assignments for our Madrid Walks class. We walked what’s called the Gran Vía, and we went to the Madrid Temple after that. Everything is so huge, and that’s the one thing that absolutely overwhelms me about Spain, is how elaborate everything is. Every single building has really intricate details, and every part of the building has something interesting about it. And once again there are tons of fountains here. We saw the Fountain of Neptune and the Fountain of Castilla (I think that’s right), and they are both really beautiful. All of the architecture is really overwhelming, and there’s nothing like it in the United States. Then the temple was just as beautiful of course. It looked kind of like they used ideas from the Romans, maybe not, but it looked Roman to me. I don’t have any pictures right now, but hopefully soon.
Saturday January 19, 2008
Today was the day that we went into Madrid to see the Prado museum. Boy is it huge. Me and Brooke were there for a total of almost four hours and we only got to see one floor of it. The most important we saw was the Velásquez exhibit that they had going on right now. I actually really liked his work, with the way he uses color and light to enhance the meaning of his paintings. He has a theme of painting everyday life in realistic situations. It could be a woman in the fish market, or a man standing on the sidewalk, but in every painting you feel like you know the inhabitants. He also had a lot of religious paintings of Christ and Mary, the apostles, and so on. But he also does a lot with mythological beings too. The Goddess Venus, Mars…everything was very beautiful, but at the same time the paintings weren’t necessarily happy, they were just whatever the people were feeling in that particular moment of time which is what made it beautiful. Oh, and I decided that I definitely don’t like El Greco’s work. Compared to Velásquez, Greco is very dark and dreary, and the paintings just aren’t pleasant to look at. He uses an elongated look to the humans that makes them look unreal, like zombies or something. Besides that, there were lots of pieces of artwork that I liked, but not of artists who I knew the names. But the one thing that was super cool: I got to stand in front of “Las Meninas”. Only one of the most famous pieces of artwork in the world by Velásquez. The painting has been photographed and put in hundreds upon hundreds of textbooks, but the tourists of course aren’t allowed to take pictures. This painting is the one where Velásquez painting himself into the painting as being a member of the Royal Court when he didn’t receive that position until like three years later, and the children are accompanied by some disfigured looking people who were supposedly the children’s playmates and that’s the only purpose they served. Very interesting.
You obviously are not permitted to eat inside the museum, so we went to the Parque de Buen Retiro to eat lunch. I tell you what, you haven’t seen a park until you’ve seen this. It goes for several blocks, so you could probably start walking it in the morning and barely finish seeing everything by the evening. There’s a large pond with little boats that you can rent out, long stretches of walkways that go on forever, and besides that you have all of the amazing buildings surrounding the park that you can see from various points in the park. People take their dogs on walks (only not on a leash), and there are people running, and some just sitting on the benches, but they are all taking in the grandeur of the park, and Madrid itself. You definitely don’t see anything like this in the states.
Today, Sunday January 20, 2008
Okay so now that you are all caught up to date, there are some other things that I wanted to mention. First of all, there are so many people that smoke here. Even though our family doesn’t smoke, our clothes smell like smoke sometimes because everywhere you go people are smoking, and it’s actually pretty gross. I am getting a little bit better at communicating every day, but it’s actually not as hard as I thought it would be. I mean, some of them talk really fast and have a super thick accent, so that makes it hard. But for the most part, I’m not having any problems. And my family is really nice, and they make us feel like part of the family. One of the things I like about the Spanish language is how they use adjectives as pet names, like in America, but it sounds so much cooler in Spanish. Our mom, whenever she talks to me she’ll say something like “¿Qué tal bonita?”. I don’t know, it’s just kind of funny.
Of course I have to say something about what I ate for lunch today. You’ll never believe it, I had lasagna. Yup, that’s right, and it was amazing like everything else I’ve eaten. The biggest difference was the cheese, which was much sweeter and creamier than the cheese that we’re used to having on lasagna. With it we had a salad with tuna and shrimp in it. But with the salad here, they don’t use ranch, Italian…any of those dressings; what they do is put oil and vinaigrette with pepper and salt. It’s definitely not my favorite, but it’s not too bad.
Other than that I think that’s about all that’s been really exciting over the past week. I don’t have any pictures to upload because my rechargeable batteries won’t charge with my converter, so I’ll steal some off of Facebook from my friends and update my blog later. This weekend we are going to Toledo on Friday until Saturday night, so that should be fun, and in a couple weeks we are going to Andalucía. Until then, ¡hasta luego amigos!
Sunday January 13, 2008
Since yesterday, a lot has happened that I feel like I should write about. Today was our first day in church, and boy was it overwhelming. Everything was in Spanish for three hours, and I felt pretty overwhelmed. We had Relief Society first, and then Sunday school, and then Sacrament. In Relief Society, I could understand the majority of what they were saying, but after that I had a really hard time focusing, and so I didn’t really get as much out of the other two meetings. But I’m noticing that my Spanish is getting better and better every day. The days go kind of slow, but I think that’s because I don’t really have much to do so far. Today, we were supposed to go with Madre’s sister, Ana, to church at 10:15 am, but Brooke’s alarm clock didn’t go off, so we got ready in about five minutes after Racquel came in and told us what time it was. Then after church we came home, and Madre and Padre had gotten home from the hospital, and Madre was making lunch for us. We had pork “breasts” I guess you could call them, but they were more like pork chops without the bones; with mashed potatoes only much smoother, bread, and salad with crab and tomatoes, cheese, and some hard-boiled egg. Everything has been really good so far. I haven’t eaten anything I didn’t like. We’ve eaten calamari, tuna, crab, pork…pretty much everything except chicken which is really popular in America.
Monday January 14, 2008
Today was our day to get acquainted with Alcalíngua. This morning we had to go take a test to determine where we are in Spanish, and let me tell you, that was one very hard test. Most of it was way over my head, or how I like to say “sobre mi cabeza”. The scores don’t really matter, but it made me realize how much I really have to learn. We didn’t have any classes today except for one, and that was our religion one. He made it sound like it’s pretty much impossible to get an A, but lots of teachers say that, so I’m not sure if I should be worried or not. I think that with the effort that I put into my classes, I will be just fine. He, like everyone else, spoke in Spanish the entire lecture, but I could understand pretty much everything he was saying. He doesn’t talk quite as fast as most other people most of the time, so I think that made it easier. But even so, I really understood what he was saying, and we were talking about how important it is to know about your history in order to know about yourself. I actually really like him a lot, but there were some girls in the back talking about how crazy he is, and boring, but I didn’t think he was either.
Other than that, today we went around Alcalá a little bit for a tour, and we went to the mall to try to change money and to buy slippers. But we couldn’t change money at the Santander in the mall for some reason, so I’ll have to do it tomorrow. Tomorrow, I have my first Spanish 106 class…and I think it will be fun. There’s about six of us from our group that are taking it. I officially have five classes, but only two that seem to be really intensive, and those are Spanish, and History 202.
Tuesday January 15, 2008
Today around 4:15pm a bunch of us had decided to go into Madrid to look around a little bit, and to get a better feel for the city. We went to the Puerta del Sol, and a few people went to the Plaza Mayor, but I didn’t. Mostly the girls I was with wanted to look in the stores, and I personally wasn’t all that interested in the stores. I think we came to see the history, not to shop, I can do that in the states. But I figured it wasn’t really a big deal, so I didn’t protest, but the next time we go in, I probably will say something. It was kind of miserable because it was especially cold today. This morning, you could tell that it had rained and it was chillier than any of the other days all day long. But while we were there we went to a little pastry shop, andI had my first pastelito from Spain. It was amazing!!! It had chocolate filling kind of like frosting, not the pudding-like stuff that you see in the U.S., and the outside was kind of like a croissant topped with crystallized powdered sugar almost. Super yummy, and I actually had two of them, but afterwards my stomach was not very happy with me. I also tried the hot chocolate. Brooke got a cup of it, but because it’s so rich, she didn’t want all of it. It’s basically like drinking a melted chocolate bar, but it tasted really good.
Wednesday January 16, 2008
I finally took a siesta today!! I was absolutely exhausted when I got home from school, and I haven’t taken a single siesta since I got into Spain. I slept for about an hour and a half I think, but it’s okay because I didn’t get much sleep the past two nights. My classes today consisted of History 202, and my conversation lab which ended at 12:30pm. Brooke still had class until one thirty, but I needed to go buy some slippers or zapatías so I went home alone. Last night I changed some money into Euros finally, and I got to spend them today. I got two pairs for 5.95€, and they are both really cute and comfy, but one of them is for my sister Jordyn since her birthday is this month. Before I went to the centro comercial, my friend Kaitlyn had come with me since neither of us had class, and on the way to the centro, we were kinda hungry so we stopped by a panadería and bought a loaf of bread. Not like the bread you see in the states, more like french bread where it’s really soft in the middle. Then when I got home, the only one home was Padre, and he was getting lunch ready for everyone. We had this soup-like mixture of lentejas (beans), onions, red pepper, and sausage. It sounds kind of funny, but it was actually really good, and the bread tasted good dipped into it. Afterwards, I had a Fiji apple for dessert or “postre”.
Over the past few days, even though I’ve been pretty occupied with classes, and getting acquainted with Spain, I’m kind of homesick. It’s so weird because when I got to Provo, I was only homesick occasionally, and it was only once in a great while. I think it might be because I knew I was going to see my family frequently, and so not seeing or talking to them regularly wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t think I would really be homesick here either because of that, but I’m also not talking to my family or texting them on a regular basis like I was before, and I’m about 6,000 miles away instead of just 600. I mean, I don’t think it’s going to affect my studies, but I’m definitely more emotionally fragile than before
Friday January 18, 2008
Well, pretty much today has been the longest day of my life. I seriously haven’t had time to sit down all day long. Yesterday was pretty laid back though and I didn’t really do anything except go to Spanish and come home to eat lunch, take a siesta, and to do homework. But lunch yesterday was pretty much the most amazing thing I’ve ever eaten in my whole life. It was a soup made with red peppers, onions, carrots, chopped up pieces of steak, and then they fried diced potatoes and you put those in there too. So after all that you eat it with the bread, and I absolutely loved it. It was definitely my favorite meal so far. Then today for lunch we had cauliflower with something sort of like a hamburger patty. You mash the cauliflower up with your fork and then you put olive oil on it with salt and pepper, and it sort of has the consistency of mashed potatoes but tastes like cauliflower. That was really yummy too. And for dinner we had tortilla de patata which is kind of like an omelet, only not runny and only made with egg, potatoes, and onion. Oh, and you eat bread with that too. We eat bread with every meal actually.
So anyway, today I went to Alcalíngua to apply for a short term loan so my classes wouldn’t get deleted, went to the Shumway’s to print forms off to release information to my parents, back to Alcalíngua to fax them but couldn’t and had to pay 4,80 € to fax it from the post office, went to the bank with Brooke, back to the Shumway’s, and home for lunch. Then right after lunch we left for Madrid to do one of the assignments for our Madrid Walks class. We walked what’s called the Gran Vía, and we went to the Madrid Temple after that. Everything is so huge, and that’s the one thing that absolutely overwhelms me about Spain, is how elaborate everything is. Every single building has really intricate details, and every part of the building has something interesting about it. And once again there are tons of fountains here. We saw the Fountain of Neptune and the Fountain of Castilla (I think that’s right), and they are both really beautiful. All of the architecture is really overwhelming, and there’s nothing like it in the United States. Then the temple was just as beautiful of course. It looked kind of like they used ideas from the Romans, maybe not, but it looked Roman to me. I don’t have any pictures right now, but hopefully soon.
Saturday January 19, 2008
Today was the day that we went into Madrid to see the Prado museum. Boy is it huge. Me and Brooke were there for a total of almost four hours and we only got to see one floor of it. The most important we saw was the Velásquez exhibit that they had going on right now. I actually really liked his work, with the way he uses color and light to enhance the meaning of his paintings. He has a theme of painting everyday life in realistic situations. It could be a woman in the fish market, or a man standing on the sidewalk, but in every painting you feel like you know the inhabitants. He also had a lot of religious paintings of Christ and Mary, the apostles, and so on. But he also does a lot with mythological beings too. The Goddess Venus, Mars…everything was very beautiful, but at the same time the paintings weren’t necessarily happy, they were just whatever the people were feeling in that particular moment of time which is what made it beautiful. Oh, and I decided that I definitely don’t like El Greco’s work. Compared to Velásquez, Greco is very dark and dreary, and the paintings just aren’t pleasant to look at. He uses an elongated look to the humans that makes them look unreal, like zombies or something. Besides that, there were lots of pieces of artwork that I liked, but not of artists who I knew the names. But the one thing that was super cool: I got to stand in front of “Las Meninas”. Only one of the most famous pieces of artwork in the world by Velásquez. The painting has been photographed and put in hundreds upon hundreds of textbooks, but the tourists of course aren’t allowed to take pictures. This painting is the one where Velásquez painting himself into the painting as being a member of the Royal Court when he didn’t receive that position until like three years later, and the children are accompanied by some disfigured looking people who were supposedly the children’s playmates and that’s the only purpose they served. Very interesting.
You obviously are not permitted to eat inside the museum, so we went to the Parque de Buen Retiro to eat lunch. I tell you what, you haven’t seen a park until you’ve seen this. It goes for several blocks, so you could probably start walking it in the morning and barely finish seeing everything by the evening. There’s a large pond with little boats that you can rent out, long stretches of walkways that go on forever, and besides that you have all of the amazing buildings surrounding the park that you can see from various points in the park. People take their dogs on walks (only not on a leash), and there are people running, and some just sitting on the benches, but they are all taking in the grandeur of the park, and Madrid itself. You definitely don’t see anything like this in the states.
Today, Sunday January 20, 2008
Okay so now that you are all caught up to date, there are some other things that I wanted to mention. First of all, there are so many people that smoke here. Even though our family doesn’t smoke, our clothes smell like smoke sometimes because everywhere you go people are smoking, and it’s actually pretty gross. I am getting a little bit better at communicating every day, but it’s actually not as hard as I thought it would be. I mean, some of them talk really fast and have a super thick accent, so that makes it hard. But for the most part, I’m not having any problems. And my family is really nice, and they make us feel like part of the family. One of the things I like about the Spanish language is how they use adjectives as pet names, like in America, but it sounds so much cooler in Spanish. Our mom, whenever she talks to me she’ll say something like “¿Qué tal bonita?”. I don’t know, it’s just kind of funny.
Of course I have to say something about what I ate for lunch today. You’ll never believe it, I had lasagna. Yup, that’s right, and it was amazing like everything else I’ve eaten. The biggest difference was the cheese, which was much sweeter and creamier than the cheese that we’re used to having on lasagna. With it we had a salad with tuna and shrimp in it. But with the salad here, they don’t use ranch, Italian…any of those dressings; what they do is put oil and vinaigrette with pepper and salt. It’s definitely not my favorite, but it’s not too bad.
Other than that I think that’s about all that’s been really exciting over the past week. I don’t have any pictures to upload because my rechargeable batteries won’t charge with my converter, so I’ll steal some off of Facebook from my friends and update my blog later. This weekend we are going to Toledo on Friday until Saturday night, so that should be fun, and in a couple weeks we are going to Andalucía. Until then, ¡hasta luego amigos!
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Finally in Spain
Today is the 12th, and I arrived in Spain yesterday afternoon after a very interesting 15 hours. However, it worked out better than it could have. My itinerary consisted of taking a plane from Denver to Chicago, Chicago to Vienna, and then Vienna to Madrid. I got to the airport in plenty of time, but then the plane in Denver was leaking oil or something, and so we were delayed about an hour before we finally took off, and because of that, I missed my flight to Vienna where I was supposed to meet up with 14 other students to continue on into Madrid. So instead I ended up on a flight by myself that left three hours later than the original flight, and went to 
Zurich, Switzerland, instead and then to Madrid and I ended up 
in Madrid two hours sooner than the group I was supposed to be with. Switzerland was beautiful! The Zurich Airport isn’t that big, and you can see the surrounding landscape and towns pretty easily from inside
the airport. When we were flying over the Alps, there was some snow, and it was about 40 degrees outside, so the weather wasn’t 
too bad. But when I got into Madrid it was raining, and it took me twenty minutes to walk from the gate to security for them to check my passport.
After calling my mom to let her know I was okay, and slamming my finger in the bathroom stall, I found out that I had to go across the airport to meet the group, and that was no easy task because the Barajas Airport is bigger than Chicago. But after I found the group, we took the metro and then the train to get to the director’s house where we stayed last night (Friday). On the train, one of the girls got robbed and she lost her wallet, which had credit cards, debit cards, insurance cards, $300 in American cash…lots of important stuff, but it didn’t have her passport, so that was lucky. And this guy Andrew talked to this man the whole ride on the train, and a couple of other people, just randomly talking to them trying to practice his Spanish.
Once we finally got to Dr. Shumway’s house, it was kind of crazy because he already has seven kids, plus him and his wife, then add 14 students. As we were making our way to his house, we sounded like a herd of cows or something because the wheels from our suitcases made a lot of noise on the cobbled streets, and someone actually called the police on us for making a disturbance. After getting all of our luggage inside and eating spaghetti, we found places for everyone to sleep by combining mattresses and making suitcases into beds, or just sleeping on couches.
Today was the day that we finally got to meet our families, and we met up with them at the Plaza de Cervantes by Dr. Shumway’s house. To our surprise (me and Brooke my roommate), our exchange father is in the hospital recovering from surgery due to a dislocated disk in back. So not only did we not meet him, but his wife Irene is there with him, so we actually haven’t met either one of them and we probably won’t until maybe Monday. Their son, Jave (Haw-ve) came and picked us up at the Plaza. Then we came back to their chalet, which is like a condo skinny and tall, which is really nice, and we got our stuff unpacked and put away. The room that Brooke and I have to share is pretty tiny, but the beds are stacked one on top of the other, and one rolls out from underneath when you go to bed. After a little while, one of the daughters got home, whose name is ironically Racquel, which is going to be kind of confusing. She tried to say my name and so did the brother and they had a hard time with it, so I think they might just call me Racquel too, which is okay. Oh, and their sister Ana has a son that goes by Nacho, but his real name is Ignacio. Go Nacho Libre!!
For lunch we had soup that’s basically ABC soup with stars instead of letters, and calamari with tomatoes, egg, and cheese. We also had bread kind of like french bread, and then for “postre”, or dessert, we had pineapple. The calamari was REALLY good, the texture was kind of funny, a little too chewy, but good. Then Brooke and I decided to go on a walk to kind of learn the area, and we found a mall that’s only about a block away, and some shops and banks and chocolaterías. The shops in Spain are very different than America. In America, we are used to Walmarts, and stores that specialize in every different area, but in Spain, each store has a different specialty. You could go to a massive shoe shore, or clothing only, and find a very large variety of selections.
When we went to the mall, we were trying to find a map of Alcalá and an internet café, because we don’t have a map, and our host family doesn’t have internet at their house. So we asked a cop in the mall about the café, and he didn’t know where one was, so we continued walking and then we remembered about the map, so we turned around and found him again. Almost immediately, he asked us if we were from the States, and we said no, and then he asked us if we were Mormon, and of course we said yes. It turned out that he was Mormon too, and when I asked him how he knew, he said he just had a feeling. He also asked if we were from Utah, which is pretty much a required question if you say you are Mormon J. Anyway, it was just really cool that he “just knew” we were Mormon too, I guess you can’t take for granted that Heavenly Father knows where you are all the time, and everything happens for a reason.
Right now, Brooke and I are just sitting at home, because Racquel and Jave went to the hospital to see their dad. We found out quickly that electricity is very different here in Spain. She went to use my blow dryer, which isn’t that powerful, and immediately the end of it turned bright orange, 
and then lost power. We think it would probably be easier to just go 
buy a cheap one somewhere so 
that way we can 
avoid any problems in the future.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
almost there
Hello again. I leave in less than two days. Ahhhh!!! It has been crazy trying to get everything ready to go. Making sure I don't forget anything, maps, toothbrush, and most importantly deodorant! No, seriously, making sure my bags aren't ov
erweight has probably been the hardest thing. Plus, trying to navigate maps in Spanish isn't exactly easy. I'm used to the grid system in Utah, and Spain is definitely not on the grid system. It basically looks like someone threw a bunch of roads down on a piece of paper and called it good. But the pictures I've seen are amazing. Right by where I'm living there's this beautiful fountain. I found it on Google Earth yesterday, and I still can't believe I'm going to be living across the street from something like that. Oh, and there's about five bakeries within walking distance from me. Ah yes, that sounds like something I could endure.
erweight has probably been the hardest thing. Plus, trying to navigate maps in Spanish isn't exactly easy. I'm used to the grid system in Utah, and Spain is definitely not on the grid system. It basically looks like someone threw a bunch of roads down on a piece of paper and called it good. But the pictures I've seen are amazing. Right by where I'm living there's this beautiful fountain. I found it on Google Earth yesterday, and I still can't believe I'm going to be living across the street from something like that. Oh, and there's about five bakeries within walking distance from me. Ah yes, that sounds like something I could endure.Anyway, I'm super excited to get to Madrid on Friday, even though it's supposed to rain all day. However, the weather looks bright and sunny for Saturday, so that will be nice to wake up to. Wish me luck!!!
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