Sunday March 30, 2008
Today was our last normal Sunday at church and everything was normal except that our group sang “God Be With You ‘Til We Meet Again”. We did the first two and the last verse in Spanish and the third one in English. Of course, because I’m such a big baby I didn’t get through the first line of the first verse without breaking up, but I did manage to hold my ground through the song even if I wasn’t much for singing. I’m not sure exactly why I got so choked up about it, I don’t even really know that many people in our ward. I think it’s mostly that I love the people as a whole and so the thought of leaving this place is really hard to fathom. It was really good though, and then after church we came home and ate lunch with Madre, Padre, Abuela, and Javi. We told them all about Barcelona and everything that we saw and did. Brooke didn’t really talk that much, but I talked up a storm as usual. Then Brooke went and took a nap and I stayed downstairs and organized pictures and stuff before taking a short siesta before the fireside for tonight. Anyway, Kathy was one of the speakers and she talked about temple attendance and how important it is, and how that’s one thing that should always be at the top of our priority list. It’s something that I’ve made a priority this semester because I learned my lesson from not doing so last semester. Every time there is an opportunity to go, I go, and I’m going to do the same in Provo, and make time maybe every week and if not that then every two weeks; there’s just no excuse not to when you are five minutes away. The other speaker was a Brother Lopez from our ward who was very involved in the progression of getting a temple in Madrid and he was one of the key architects. He told us about trying to get the land contract and finding a spot, and then when it all finally pulled through and the week of the open house arrived. It was amazing to hear about, and it was a great surprise to everyone that so many visitors came to the open house, over 50,000 people by the end of the week, unbelievable, “increíble”. But here’s the big news for the day. Susie Salisbury has decided to stay and live in Spain for the summer and work as an English teacher here in Alcalá!!! Isn’t that amazing? It was especially special for me to hear about it, because Susie and I kind of decided to go to Spain together and she was the first friend I had in the study abroad group. To be honest, it doesn’t surprise me one bit that she decided to do it, and if anyone in our group would do something like this it would be Susie. I am insanely jealous of her, and if I had the money and the time was right, I would be doing the same thing. However, I decided a long time ago that I will be returning to Spain sometime in the near future. Other than that I’ve just been spending a lot of time talking to Madre and Padre, more than usual, because I’m going to miss them so much. Madre told me that I should come visit them when I come back to Spain, and believe me I’m going to too! Oh I cracked the apple twice today! Bye!
Monday March 31, 2008
For lunch we had meatballs and it was so yummy, and after studying a little bit I walked to the church for religion. Religion made me cry at the end during the prayer (go figure). It never ceases to amaze me how much I have learned from Hermano Lopez. He has seen and done so much for the church in Spain and I feel absolutely honored to have known him. We asked him when he is going to publish his research on the history of the church in Spain and he said it will probably be spring of 2009 because that is the 40th anniversary of the dedication of Spain for the preaching of the gospel which was May 20, 1969…very appropriate. I’m sure that almost everyone in our group will be trying to get their hands on a copy of it since we know the author of it, I know I will be going to. As we were finishing up the class today, Faustino was talking about how when he decided to become a member of the church he became an “extraño” or foreigner to everyone around him because that just wasn’t how things were done at the time in Spain. But he told us that “if you want to be converted, you have to change your identity”, and that’s really what it came down to for these people in order to have the truth. He quoted something that really has played a large role in my life the past few years “Estamos en el mundo, pero no somos del mundo”, or in other words we are in the world, but not of it. That’s exactly what it means to be a Latter-Day Saint, and the example of Faustino Lopez Requena has showed me that in such a way that there really are no words to fully describe my admiration for him. After class we took a big group photo with him, and some others and I got individual photos with him; after ours was taken I told him how much I appreciated what he had taught us and that I had learned so much, and come to love Spain like a second home, and that I plan on returning. What he said in reply I will never forget “Estaré esperando”, I’ll be waiting. I wasn’t really that close with Hermano Lopez, and I may never see him again in this life, but largely because of him I have a greater love and place in my heart for the people of Spain.
Thursday April 3, 2008
I didn’t have much to write about yesterday, but I have a ton to write about today. First of all, yesterday we ate “cerdo Ibérico” and “albondigas” for lunch. The Iberian pork is the pork/pigs that have black skin, so the taste of the meat is a little bit different. The way Madre cooked it, it was still a little pink in the middle, so I hope that’s okay, but honestly, I didn’t really like it as much as regular pork because it tasted almost sourish-maybe alcoholic-pickled. I don’t know how to describe it, kind of like jerky but stronger. The meatballs (albondigas) were good though, even though we didn’t have potatoes with them again. Madre even gave us a bunch of recipes for the food that she makes for us too. After lunch I just went and studied for my Spanish test, which is totally boring! The only other fun thing yesterday was the dramatizations that we did in conversation class. I can’t describe it all, but let’s just say that we have a bunch of actors in our group.J
Other than that, that was most of what we talked about. One other thing that Kait and I noticed about Spain: all the teenagers have lots of piercings; the older woman are more prone to dye their hair funky colors than the youth; and the fad right now is to wear an outfit of all the same color and it’s okay. I also went and sat in the in the plaza de Cervantes today to read and can I just say, that I love watching the Spanish men in the plaza arguing with each other in their sweater vests and loafers and little dogs and walking canes. They just make me laugh because they are the best of friends, but they have such strong opinions and bicker back and forth. Just like Padre who yells at the t.v. when Zapatero comes on and hates it when fútbol is on instead of “Al Pie de la Letra”. Oh I’m going to miss them so much. When we were cleaning up after dinner, Madre was like “next Thursday at this time I’m going to be alone”. I just wanted to cry, and like I said before, I have no choice but to come back to Spain.
Sunday April 6, 2008
Yesterday most of the day I was in the Plaza de Cervantes studying for the History 202 exam, and I tell you what I got so burned on my legs! I looked like a lobster afterwards, and I made sure to take a picture Anyway, when we got home we worked on homework a little more after having calamari and natilla (jello-ish substance with galletas), and then Brooke and I stayed up talking for a while until about 2a.m. So Brooke and I listened to conference on my iTunes, and then we could hear Madre downstairs cooking lunch so we came down to watch. We had paella so now we have a better idea of how to make it, and I of course have pictures and video while we were making everything. For postre we had flan sin huevo and I like that one better because it’s smoother and not quite as custardy as the flan con huevo, but both are good. And now I’ve just been sitting here in the kitchen talking to Madre about different things, and showing her pictures on my computer. Padre is sitting across the table from me reading the paper out loud. I’m not sure why he does that, but it seems like various days throughout the week he will sit at the table reading the paper out loud like he’s in a trance or something. It’s quite entertaining. Also he ate more than I did today so that was funJ. Javi and Raquel were teasing each other about the motocross on T.V. and everyone was teasing Raquel about how she never wants to eat postre or paella, and Javi said if his driver won, then Raquel had to eat all of his postre. It was just fun family teasing though, nothing harsh. Then in a little bit we are going to the church to watch the Sunday morning session, and then I’m going to try to call my parents maybe.
Tuesday April 8, 2008
This morning I went to my last day of Spanish in Spain, and we went over our exams, and I think that my grade will turn out to be a 90 or 91%, so I’m okay with that. At the end of class, Jesús gave kind of a farewell speech, and he told us about how when he first met us we looked so scared, and he was scared that because of all the trips we had, we wouldn’t do the work. However, he was happy to find out that we pulled through with everything we were supposed to do, and that he really enjoyed working with us and seeing us progress. I remember the first couple days of class, no one could understand what he was saying a lot of the time, and I have to admit I was a little frustrated with not being able to ask in English if I didn’t understand, but after three months we can communicate with him and learn the concepts just like any other class would. Before we left class we took group pictures, and Jesús wanted to get pictures of everyone too. I am going to miss that class, and I learned so much from Jesús, you can just tell that he knows so much and is so smart. We were really lucky to have him as a teacher.
Tomorrow after the 202 test we have this little graduation ceremony thing saying we passed the course, and then Kait and I are going to Carrefour because she wants to, and then we have lunch at the Gringo Viejo together with the whole group. The rest of the day is pretty much devoted to packing and spending the rest of the time with my family. I think Brooke and I are going to make something for them (I really want to), and I’m going to try to write in my journal, but no promises, if not I’ll just write on the plane or something. Wish me luck!
Thursday April 10, 2008
I don’t even know where to start, yesterday was so amazing, and so much happened, so this is probably going to be a pretty long entry. Yesterday morning I woke up, and I totally forgot that it was my last day in Spain until about ten seconds after I woke up, and I was immediately sad. I wasn’t really stressed about the test, but I did decide to study on the way to school. I was talking out loud to myself about the terms when this Spanish man who was walking next to me noticed how much I was studying, and he asked me why I was studying so hard and what was wrong. He seemed surprised that I stressed so much about a test, and he told me I shouldn’t worry about it, and I should just go over to his house and have breakfast instead of worrying about the test. He was a funny old man, and it was just the thing I needed to get my spirits up before the test. As for the test, I think it went pretty good and I think my grade is good too. After the test, we had our “graduation ceremony” to get our diplomas from Alcalíngua to say that we have completed the term successfully. Then I went to my last class of conversation, and we had kind of a fiesta because people brought treats to eat during class, and we played games, and we found out what our grades are. We played 20 Questions, and I’d say that my favorite one was when Andrew was up there. The word was “calzoncillos” which is boy’s underwear, but when Andrew was guessing he asked a few questions and then he was like “son grandes?” and of course that sent everyone rolling. We had to leave for lunch around 2p.m., so after I finished emailing we were just hanging out, and I tried to helping Kait find out stuff for her flights, but she couldn’t find the confirmation in her email. Then we went to the Gringo Viejo for lunch, and I guess we paid 12€ for each person to eat. While we were waiting to eat Kait, Missy, Callie White, and Cassie handed out awards for everyone in the group. For me mine was the Hopeless Romantic because I know everyone’s love stories in the group. Everyone’s awards were really funny, and everything fit the person really well, so that was fun. For lunch everyone kind of shared what they got so we could try all the food; there were four options for the first dish, four for the second dish, and about six for postre. As the appetizer, they had little toast pieces on a plate and then you put red peppers with oil on the toast. For the first dish we could have a salad, crema de calabacín (zucchini soup), spaghetti with ham pieces, or cod with asparagus. For the second dish we could have a breaded chicken breast filled with ham and cheese, pork loin with patatas, bacalao (cod) de ajo (garlic), or bonito (tuna) with peppers. For postre we could have a tarta de limón, cream puffs with chocolate, ice cream , tiramisu (I think this is a tarta too, but it had alcohol in it so I don’t think anyone got it), and then I got this thing kind of like a cream-filled cinnamon roll with whipped cream only a lot smaller. Everything was absolutely amazing, but lunch took forever and we ended up being at the restaurant for about three hours, but it also took about 20 minutes between each dish too. I got pictures with everyone in the group during lunch, and of course I cried, I’m not sure why I’ve been so emotional lately maybe just because I love Spain so much. After lunch was over, Kait and I decided to walk around the center of Alcalá since it was really our last time to do that, and we went to Lupe’s, down Calle Mayor, stopped in Madre’s store and talked to Ana and Kait bought something for Blanca, walked around the Plaza de Cervantes. I finally got home around seven I think, and I got going on my packing. Surprisingly it only took me about an hour to pack everything, but I’m going to have to repack because when we checked our bags at the airport this morning my bag was over, but they didn’t make us pay anything so that was nice. Then I was talking to Javi and Raquel, and since Erica Webb was going to go with us we were going to meet in front of the Plaza de Toros, but Javi said that you can’t do that unless you have an actual address to tell them to pick you up at. So I left to go see if there was anything that could qualify as a pick up spot, and I ended up walking around for about an hour when it was absolutely raining cats and dogs, and I never found a spot. So I got home, and it turns out that we could have the taxi pick us up and then Erica which is much easier, but Faustino offered to take Erica to the Plaza so she didn’t go with us. Anyway, I was soaked and I guess everyone was at our house, but I never got to say goodbye to everyone except Javi, Madre, and Padre. But it’s okay, I wrote a really long letter to the family right before I went to bed. Madre made the most amazing tortilla de patata for dinner, and then afterwards we watched “Pretty Woman” in Spanish (of course). It turns out that Madre loves that movie as much as I do so that was really cool. Padre was watching it in the kitchen because he was reading the paper, and Javi even came down and watched the end of it with us. I hadn’t seen it in such a long time, and it was really fun to watch it with her. I also got pictures with Madre, Padre, and Javi and so did Brooke. Finally we went upstairs to go to bed around one, and Brooke was still trying to finish burning her pictures onto CDs, so we didn’t get to make the movie for the family, but like I said I wrote that letter to them, and I’m just going to make the movie when I get back instead.
I woke up at four this morning to call the taxi, and we left the house at about ten to five. Madre got up to tell us goodbye, and I cried when I was saying goodbye to her. She gave me a real hug, like what I’m used to getting from my parents in the states. It was so niceJ. I wasn’t really hungry so I just had a glass of juice, and then we got the taxi, and it was our driver’s first day on the job, and my first time in a taxi, which by the way was almost 10€ so now I am pretty much completely wiped out as far as money goes for Vienna. Oh well, once we got to the Plaza, we got all our stuff in the compartments and left for Madrid after deciding that Amy was going on the next bus. I got pictures from Lisa, and we got to the terminal with no problems. I was overweight with my luggage but they let it slide so that was nice. And now we’ve been sitting by the gate since about 7:30a.m. and it’s a little after nine right now. The plane was supposed to leave soon, but it’s running late so we’ll probably leave in a little while. Vienna should be great, and I’m definitely going to sleep on the plane since I’m going on a little over two hours of sleep.
Friday April 11, 2008
Okay, so yesterday after I stopped writing in my journal the flight to Vienna was overall uneventful, and we got into Vienna around 3:30pm I think. After collecting all of our luggage, we proceeded to get our vouchers for the hotel and then the taxi to go to the hotel. Our hotel was only about ten minutes away from the airport which was nice for us to be able to get there at decent time, but it was about 15 miles outside of Vienna, so it was kind of a hassle to get into the city because we had to take the train. After getting settled into our rooms, we went and hopped on the train that left at 4:30pm to go see as much as we could in Vienna. The train ride wasn’t that long maybe only fifteen minutes, and we got off the train at the main station in Vienna and Natausha had written down some of the sites in that area in a tour format for us to go see. So we walked around and saw the opera house, where the tombs of the Hapburgs are located, the cathedral there, a memorial to the victims of the concentration camp that was in Vienna (which is also a structure protesting fascism), the palace, and some other little sites. The city itself was really beautiful with lots of trees, flowers, and hardly any trash or graffiti like there was in Spain. As we were walking around, we didn’t look in any tourist shops since we were so low on time, but Vienna is renowned for its chocolate so we did make point to go into this little shop by the concentration camp memorial to try some chocolate. The one that I got was a chocolate that is apparently very typical of Vienna. It had stripes of chocolate and a lighter colored cream, and the lighter cream had a taste kind of like peanut butter, but the girl at the counter said that it’s made with almonds not peanuts. Almost everyone got something different, so I won’t write about all of it, but it was all so yummy. As we were walking around by the palace, we hadn’t heard any Spanish since the flight out of Madrid, so we were really surprised when we heard these two girls speaking Spanish nearby. It turned out that they live a little outside of Madrid, but the one girl is actually German. She knows German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and English!!! Isn’t that crazy, that’s five languages! Anyway, we talked to them for a minute since we could actually communicate with them, took some pictures and then said “hasta luego”. At that point, I really missed Spain, and I couldn’t help but burst into tears at the thought that I had actually left Spain. But I got over it, and we continued on our way to find something to eat. We wanted to get something typical of the region, and so we began the pilgrimage for wiener schnitzel!!! Of course, since they are typical they were everywhere, and so were the doner kebaps, the hard part was finding one on the way back to the train station and one that had decent prices. We ended up finding a pretty good little stand right in the middle of what is the equivalent to Puerta del Sol, that sold kebaps and wiener schnitzel. Meg and Christy got the kebaps, and everyone else got the wieners. I got the “milde”, Dani got the Karsikreiner which was cheese filled, and Kait got the “picante”. All of them were really good (we swapped bites), and afterwards we were so full we couldn’t believe it. After that we hung out in this little area with stone benches and a water fountain where the water formed a “W” for Vienna (W’s are V’s), and the water from that fountain was absolutely amazing. On the way back to the station, Dani wanted some ice cream for the last time from Europe, and Kait found some chocolate for her family, and then we headed back into Fischamend to get to bed. All of us were going on about three hours of sleep so you can imagine how tired we were. When we got back to the hotel, Natausha and I were rooming together, Kait and Christy, and Meg and Dani each had their own rooms. I used Kait’s computer to email my parents and let them know I was safe in Vienna, and then I went and got ready for bed. Here’s the thing though, Kait was using my converter to charge her computer while I got ready for bed, and when I went back to get it I just propped our door open to come back in, but when I got there the door had sucked shut, and Tausha was asleep, so I ended up sleeping in Kait and Christy’s room sharing a bed with Kait. It wasn’t that bad, and I slept pretty good even though we were sharing a twin bed.
Then this morning we woke up around six to reorganize our suitcases, to eat breakfast, and to go into Fischamend for a little while. For breakfast I had yogurt with muesli, some bread and a roll, and a chocolate sweet roll to finish it off. Kait had some rough blisters from wearing her boots yesterday so she didn’t go with us, but Tausha and I took Kait’s letter’s and postcards into town to send them off for her. We only got to spend about thirty minutes there, but while we were there one of the things that we thought was interesting was how everyone seemed to be riding bikes instead of walking and carrying baskets (like for bread or flowers). We even saw a man who had a basket on his bike, and in his basket he had his little dog! Our impressions of the people were that everyone was SO friendly, and even though not all of them spoke English, the ones that did we really enjoyed talking to. Anyway, after getting back from Fischamend we ended up missing the shuttle back to the airport that we had planned on taking, but they came about every twenty minutes so we just waited for the next one, and we were still an hour early once we got through security anyway. Getting tickets for the flights was relatively smooth except Tausha and Dani had a little trouble because originally they had planned on an eight-day layover in Vienna but changed it due to other plans, but the airlines still had the first itinerary on file for some reason, even though their paid-for night in Vienna worked out fine with no problems. But it all worked out fine, and everyone got where they needed to. Dani’s flight went to New York; Christy was staying to travel with her brother, and the rest of us are going to Washington D.C. and then splitting up. Kait and Meg somehow ended up sitting right next to each other but Tausha and I are not next to anyone that we know. I’m in the 14th row, and everyone else is past the 25th, so I’m pretty far away, but it’s okay, the people I’m sitting next to are really friendly. There’s this group of businessmen that were staying in Vienna for a conference and I talked to one of them for a while. It turns out his son is going to start his first year of college here soon in Philadelphia, and so we were discussing that and the different options about college. He said that his son is really talented with music, but that he wants to go into psychology, and that he also really loves his car. That doesn’t surprise me much, most teenage boys love their cars.
Sunday April 13, 2008
I think this will be the last time that I write in my Spain Journal. Since I’m not in Spain anymore I figure I should write in my normal journal so I can keep the two separate. To finish it off I guess I just wanted to tell anyone and everyone that reads this blog exactly how I feel about my experience over the past few months. From reading what I’ve written, it’s obvious to me that I definitely love Spain. Everyone that I have talked to since I got back to the states wants to know “how was Spain”. But you know what, there is no possible way for me to explain “how Spain was” because I actually lived it, and that’s not something you can share with anyone. One thing I can say is that by doing a Study Abroad, I got the chance to see another part of the world with a different culture, people, traditions, and people. Being in America is supposed to be the land of opportunity and I think Americans kind of immortalize the American dream into thinking that this is the only place you can be happy. But there are people all over the place that are so unhappy with themselves, and being in Spain made me realize that you can be happy anywhere, you don’t have to be in only America. We get so attached to the internet, money, cell phones, and iPods that we forget the simple things like just taking a walk in the park with someone you love or taking a short siesta before you have to rush off to work again for a few hours before coming home to watch the news or Al Pie de la Letra with your family. Everyone is familiar with the saying “time is money”, but maybe money isn’t the only important thing, even though it’s something that affects everyone of us, but it’s not the MOST important thing. That’s going to be hard to keep in mind sometimes, especially since I’m just a poor college student, but I think that everyone comes to a realization like this at some point in their lives, and I’m just glad that I came to it now rather than later. I cut a lot out of my journal that I would have loved to share with everyone, so to make up for everything that I cut out, I just want to put my philosophy of the world on paper. Everyone has their own thing going on and we make a big deal about being individual and different, and that’s great, but the one thing that everyone has in common is the fact that we are all in the same world, and that means we are in it together whether we like it or not. People are people, and just because they speak a different language or have different customs doesn’t mean they are any less important than you are. Keep that in mind, I know I will. Thanks for reading everyone. Hasta luego.
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